Ohmic heating as evidence for strong field-aligned currents in filamentaryaurora

A large increase in electron temperature measured in filamentary aurora wit h the European incoherent scatter radar has been modeled with a one-dimensi onal electron transport and ion chemistry code. To account for the observed changes in electron temperature, while also reproducing the measured E reg ion electron density profiles, a source of electron heating is required in addition to local heating from energy degradation of the precipitating elec trons. We show that ohmic heating in a strong field-aligned current can acc ount for the required heat source.