Abstract

With the launch of dedicated satellite gravity missions, starting with CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload (CHAMP) in 2000, with Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) in 2002, and Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) in 2009, the accuracy and spatial resolution of the Earth's global gravity field models have been improved. Highly sensitive accelerometer measurements have not only been useful for gravity field modeling but have also been contributing to the studies of thermospheric dynamics. While improving the sensitivity of the accelerometer measurements, the new instrumentation used on board GOCE brings different challenges in understanding the data and developing sophisticated data processing. Our analyses reveal that the GOCE gravitational gradient measurements were affected by highly variable ionospheric dynamics that did not only degrade the quality of the GOCE Electrostatic Gravity Gradiometer (EGG) measurements but also proved that some characteristics of ionospheric dynamics can be measured by GOCE accelerometers and other Low Earth Orbiters. In this paper, we show how GOCE-retrieved neutral winds respond to main ionospheric currents and we develop the impulse-response relation between intense ionospheric dynamics (plasma drift) represented by Poynting energy flux and the gravity gradiometer tensor trace disturbances observed over the north geomagnetic polar region.