American Geophysical Union, Journal of Geophysical Research, A11(116), p. n/a-n/a, 2011
DOI: 10.1029/2011ja016715
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The movement of ions along terrestrial magnetic field lines frequently causes the redistribution of ionization between northern and southern hemispheres. This behavior is known as interhemispheric transport and is an important source of coupling between the ion and neutral gases in the upper atmosphere. The Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) satellite and the Coupled Ion Neutral Dynamics Investigation (CINDI) provide an opportunity to directly measure ion velocities and ion densities in the topside ionosphere, facilitating the study of the field-aligned components near the equator. Using data from 2008 and 2009, when the solar cycle is at a minimum, the dependence of interhemispheric transport on season, local time, and latitude will be shown for a limited longitude sector. The contributions of different physical drivers to the field-aligned flows will be explored using CINDI observations and ionospheric models.