1] We report new results on the relation between drift velocity shear, average inverted V energy, and the separation of bifurcated high-latitude Sun-aligned polar arcs within a global transpolar auroral arc system. The two parallel arcs appeared at the location of converging Àv  B electric field of two sunward flow channels that were separated by an intermediate region of much weaker antisunward flow. The flow shear consisted of differences mainly in the magnitude of the sunward drift velocity. The cross-track disturbance magnetic field was in phase with the drift velocity fluctuations in such a way that two upward field-aligned currents coincided with the peak average energy of the electron precipitation that generated the two polar arcs while a downward field-aligned current was observed in the intermediate region. The observed transverse arc separation is consistent with a reported linear dependence between the average energy of the precipitating electrons of the two arcs and the arc separation. We propose that this relation mainly follows from a local Pedersen current closure requirement. The greater the upward field-aligned current density of the two arcs, the wider the transverse region of the intermediate downward field-aligned current needs to be in order to supply a sufficient amount of current carriers to the bifurcated arc current circuit and thus to balance the Pedersen current.