Articles | Volume 35, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-35-869-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-35-869-2017
Regular paper
 | 
26 Jul 2017
Regular paper |  | 26 Jul 2017

Quantification of the total ion transport in the near-Earth plasma sheet

Rikard Slapak, Maria Hamrin, Timo Pitkänen, Masatoshi Yamauchi, Hans Nilsson, Tomas Karlsson, and Audrey Schillings

Data sets

Cluster data ESA https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/csa

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Short summary
The ion total transports in the near-Earth plasma sheet have been investigated and quantified. Specifically, the net O+ transport is about 1024 s−1 in the earthward direction, which is 1 order of magnitude smaller than the typical O+ ionospheric outflows, strongly indicating that most outflow will eventually escape, leading to significant atmospheric loss. The study also shows that low-velocity flows (< 100 km s−1) dominate the mass transport in the near-Earth plasma sheet.