Generation of Top‐Boundary Conditions for 3D Ionospheric Models Constrained by Auroral Imagery and Plasma Flow Data.

Data products relating to auroral arc systems are often sparse and distributed while ionospheric simulations generally require spatially continuous maps as boundary conditions at the topside ionosphere. Fortunately, all‐sky auroral imagery can provide information to fill in the gaps. This paper describes three methods for creating electrostatic plasma convection maps from multi‐spectral imagery combined with plasma flow data tracks from heterogeneous sources. These methods are tailored to discrete arc structures with coherent morphologies. The first method, "reconstruction," builds the electric potential map (from which the flow field is derived) out of numerous arc‐like ridges that are then optimized against the plasma flow data. This method is designed for data from localized swarms of spacecraft distributed in both latitude and longitude. The second method, "replication," uses a 1D across‐arc flow data track and replicates these data along a determined primary and secondary arc boundary while simultaneously scaling and rotating to keep the flow direction parallel to the arc and the flow shear localized at the arc boundaries. The third, "weighted replication," performs a replication on two data tracks and calculates a weighted average between them, where the weighting is based on data track proximity. This paper shows the use of these boundary conditions in driving and assessing 3D auroral ionospheric, multi‐fluid simulations. Plain Language Summary: The aurora, or northern and southern lights, are embedded within a complicated system of interacting electric fields, magnetic fields, and charged particles, the more energetic of which produce the lights themselves by exciting the neutral atmosphere. This brings about a 3D electric current system. These currents enter and exit the atmosphere along the Earth's magnetic field lines, and can only close their circuit between 80 and 150 km. This paper outlines the importance of simulating auroral arc systems in 3D and thus the need for generating continuous horizontal top‐boundary drivers for these simulations. This is difficult as the available data products are limited. This paper provides three methods for creating these boundary conditions using multi‐color, all‐sky auroral imagery in conjunction with approximately across‐arc plasma flow data tracks provided by spacecraft, sounding rockets, and/or radar measurements. Key Points: We provide three methods for developing ionospheric convection flow maps from limited data tracks in conjunction with auroral imageryMethods for generating distributed plasma flow surrounding auroral arcs can benefit from auroral arc information provided by all‐sky imageryModeling realistic auroral current closure needs drivers that vary along‐arc, across‐arc, and in altitude via electron precipitation spectra [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]