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Longitudinal variation of thermospheric density around the terminator from APOD
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  • Guangming Chen,
  • Jiyao Xu,
  • Xie Li,
  • Maosheng He,
  • Shushi Liu,
  • Haijun Man,
  • Hong Gao,
  • Yongping Li
Guangming Chen
Beijing Aerospace Control Center

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Jiyao Xu
State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, Center for Space Science and Applied research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
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Xie Li
Unknown
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Maosheng He
Leibniz-Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Rostock University
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Shushi Liu
Beijing Aerospace Control Center
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Haijun Man
Institute of Meteorology and Oceanography
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Hong Gao
National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Yongping Li
National Space Science Center
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Abstract

This study presents the longitudinal distribution of thermospheric density around the terminator (in the dawn and dusk sectors), using observations collected by the atmospheric density detector onboard the Chinese satellite APOD (Atmospheric density detection and Precise Orbit Determination) from 2017 to 2018. The APOD observations show a significant relative longitudinal variation of thermospheric density with global maxima (Δρrmax) near the geomagnetic pole, especially in the winter hemisphere. The annual maximum of Δρrmax appears in the Southern Hemisphere around the June solstices and reaches 26.3% and 39.6% at dawn and dusk, respectively. Compared with at dawn, Δρrmax occurs at a higher latitude with a larger value at dusk. The auroral heating and meridional wind might play an important role in the longitudinal variation of thermospheric density. We further compare the APOD observations with the NRLMSIS 2.0 model predictions under low solar activity condition. The NRLMSIS 2.0 model reproduces similar longitudinal variations to the observations, with hemispheric asymmetry and local time difference.