MHD nature of ionospheric wave packets generated by the solar terminator

The morphology of medium-scale traveling wave packets is for the first time presented based on the total electron content (TEC), measured at the global network of GPS receivers (up to 1500 stations) during the long period (from 1998 to 2007) and at the GPS/GEONET dense Japan network (1220 stations) in 2008—2009. In the time domain, these packets are chains of narrowband TEC variations (trains) with a duration of about 1—2 h, a total duration of up to 6 h, and a variation period of 10—30 min. In the winter Northern Hemisphere, traveling wave packets are observed mostly 3 h after the passage of the morning solar terminator. In the equinox they appear after the passage of the solar terminator without a pronounced delay or advance. In summer traveling wave packets are registered 1.5—2 h before the appearance of the evening solar terminator at the observation point when the solar terminator passes in the magnetically conjugate region. The spatial structure of traveling wave packets is characterized by a high degree of anisotropy and coherence at a distance larger than ten wavelengths (the wavelength is 100—300 km). A high quality of the oscillatory system and synchronization with the appearance of the solar terminator at the observation point and in the magnetically conjugate region indicate that the generation of traveling wave packets by the solar terminator is of the MHD nature. Our results for the first time experimentally confirm the hypothesis that the solar terminator generates ion sound waves, proposed by Huba et al. [2000b].