Temporal Correlation between Ionospheric Storm-Enhanced Density Plume and Plasmaspheric Plume Occurrence

Abstract

We present a statistical evidence of a temporal correlation between ionospheric storm-enhanced density (SED) and plasmaspheric plumes during magnetic storms. We identified SED plumes in 75 storms between 2010-2024 with sufficient total electron content (TEC) coverage. We also identified plasmaspheric plumes during these storms using a plasmapause asymmetry (PPA) index derived from the machine-learning-based DEN3D model. We found that all SED plumes coincided with plasmaspheric plumes. The start and end times of both phenomena exhibit near-zero lag within a half-hour delay, confirming their synchronized evolution. For the first time, superposed epoch analyses reveal that plume onsets align with solar wind driving and geomagnetic activity, including peaks in the electric field, coupling function, auroral electrojet indices, and the asymmetric ring current index, all of which facilitate plume formation. This work provides timely new insights into magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling processes and demonstrates the utility of machine-learning-based diagnostics for space physics/weather.