A Comparison of SuperDARN-Derived Plasma Convection and DMSP Ion Drift Measurements

Recently several studies indicated possible deterioration of accuracy in the SuperDARN convection measurements at large distances （〉2 500 km）. In this study, the SuperDARN-derived convection was compared with ion drift measurements given by the DMSP satellites, focused on SuperDARN far-range measurements, to investigate the above-mentioned problem. Two different procedures of SuperDARN convection estimation were applied. An overall reasonable agreement between two observation systems were found though individual points in some passes show significant differences. Besides, a tendency is also clear that the SuperDARN-derived velocities were slightly smaller than those of DMSP ion drift measurements. Potential factors contributing to the velocity differences were explained.