A survey of simultaneous observations of the high-latitude ionosphere and interplanetary magnetic field with EISCAT and AMPTE-UKS

The paper surveys the results of simultaneous observations by the EISCAT incoherent scatter radar and the AMPTE-UKS satellite, made during three periods in September and October 1984, when AMPTE-UKS was in the solar wind on the dayside of the Earth and the UK-POLAR EISCAT experiment was measuring ionospheric parameters at invariant latitudes 70.8-75.00. A total of 42 h of EISCAT convection velocity data, with 2.5 min resolution, were obtained, together with 28 h of simultaneous 5 s resolution AMPTE-UKS observations of the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). The main subjects discussed are the form of the plasma convection patterns and their dependence on all three components of the IMF, the ionospheric response to abrupt changes in the IMF, and a crossing of an IMF sector boundary. 'Short lived rapid flow bursts', which are believed to be related to flux transfer events at the magnetopause are also described. (author)