Global Auroral Remote Sensing Using GGS UVI Images

The GGS POLAR satellite, with an apogee distance of 9 Earth radii, provides an excellent platform for extended viewing of the northern auroral zone. Global FUV auroral images from the Ultraviolet Imager onboard the POLAR satellite can be used as quantitative remote diagnostics of the auroral regions, yielding estimates of incident energy characteristics, compositional changes, and other higher order data products. In particular, images of long and short wavelength Earth Far Ultraviolet (FUV) Lyman-Birge-Hopfield (LBH) emissions can be modeled to obtain functions of energy flux and average energy that are basically insensitive to changes in seasonal and solar activity changes. The determination of maps of incident auroral energy characteristics is demonstrated here and compared with in situ measurements.