Latitude Variation of the Effect of Magnetic Activity on Ionospheric Drifts

Abstract

THE effect of magnetic activity on horizontal drifts in the ionosphere has been reported by several investigators¹. This communication deals with the effect of magnetic activity on ionospheric drifts at various latitudes with the objective of making apparent the variation in drift speeds with latitude under active magnetic conditions. We have used data on horizontal drifts available from World Data Centers for the IGY period and the drift stations are selected so as to represent a particular range of latitude. The drift speeds and the corresponding K index values are tabulated for all the drift recording stations and corresponding nearest magnetic observatories (Table 1). The tabulated values are then averaged and the average drift speed values for each corresponding K index are plotted as shown in Fig. 1.