scispace - formally typeset
Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Variations in the polar cap area during two substorm cycles

Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In this article, the authors employed observations from several sources to determine the location of the polar cap bound-ary, or open/closed field line boundary, at all local times, allowing the amount of open flux in the magnetosphere to be quantified.
Abstract
This study employs observations from several sources to determine the location of the polar cap bound- ary, or open/closed field line boundary, at all local times, allowing the amount of open flux in the magnetosphere to be quantified. These data sources include global auroral im- ages from the Ultraviolet Imager (UVI) instrument on board the Polar spacecraft, SuperDARN HF radar measurements of the convection flow, and low altitude particle measurements from Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites, and the Fast Auroral SnapshoT (FAST) spacecraft. Changes in the open flux content of the mag- netosphere are related to the rate of magnetic reconnection occurring at the magnetopause and in the magnetotail, al- lowing us to estimate the day- and nightside reconnection voltages during two substorm cycles. Specifically, increases in the polar cap area are found to be consistent with open flux being created when the IMF is oriented southwards and low-latitude magnetopause reconnection is ongoing, and de- creases in area correspond to open flux being destroyed at substorm breakup. The polar cap area can continue to de- crease for 100 min following the onset of substorm breakup, continuing even after substorm-associated auroral features have died away. An estimate of the dayside reconnection voltage, determined from plasma drift measurements in the ionosphere, indicates that reconnection can take place at all local times along the dayside portion of the polar cap bound- ary, and hence presumably across the majority of the dayside magnetopause. The observation of ionospheric signatures of bursty reconnection over a wide extent of local times sup- ports this finding.

read more

Content maybe subject to copyright    Report

Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI

Storm time polar cap expansion: interplanetary magnetic field clock angle dependence

TL;DR: In this paper , the authors simulate five solar storm periods with the coupled model consisting of the Open GGCM coupled with the Coupled Thermosphere IonosphereModel (CTIM) and the Rice Convection Model (RCM), to estimate the location and dynamics of the OCB.

Remote sensing the spatial and temporal structure of

TL;DR: G.chi et al. as discussed by the authors, G.A.Chisham, M.M.Lam, I.J.Coleman, and W. W.Bristow, UAF Geophysical Institute, 903 Koyukukuk Drive, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775, USA.
Journal ArticleDOI

Activation of the tail open part during the magnetospheric storm

TL;DR: In this article, a model of screening was proposed to determine its quantitative characteristics in the selected superstorm and the coefficient of a screening was found to be β = Ψ2/Ψ02, where Ψ02 = const is open magnetic flux through the old polar cap measured prior to the substorm, and Ψ 2 is variable magnetic flux measured during the same area measured during a substorm.
Journal ArticleDOI

Geomagnetic method for automatic diagnostics of auroral oval boundaries in two hemispheres of Earth

TL;DR: The ground-based automatic method for determining auroral oval (AO) boundaries developed by Lunyushkin and Penskikh as discussed by the authors has been modified and expanded to the Southern Hemisphere.
Dissertation

Investigating the relationship between open magnetic flux and the substorm cycle

TL;DR: Investigating the relationship between Open Magnetic Flux and the Substorm Cycle was investigated in this paper, where the sub-storm cycle was observed to be associated with the open magnetic flux.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI

Empirical high-latitude electric field models

TL;DR: In this paper, large-scale revisions of the OGO 6 dawn-dusk measurement models are made, showing that the deformations of the two-cell patterns lead to sunward convection in dayside polar regions, while maintaining the integrity of the night-side convection pattern.
Journal ArticleDOI

DARN/SUPERDARN : A global view of the dynamics of high-latitude convection

TL;DR: The Dual Auroral Radar Network (DARN) is a global-scale network of HF and VHF radars capable of sensing backscatter from ionospheric irregularities in the E and F-regions of the high-latitude ionosphere as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI

Initial ISEE Magnetometer Results: Magnetopause Observations (Article published in the special issues: Advances in Magnetospheric Physics with GEOS- 1 and ISEE - 1 and 2.)

Abstract: The magnetic field profiles across the magnetopause obtained by the ISEE-1 and -2 spacecraft separated by only a few hundred kilometers are examined for four passes. During one of these passes the magnetosheath field was northward, during one it was slightly southward, and in two it was strongly southward. The velocity of the magnetopause is found to be highly irregular ranging from 4 to over 40 km s-1 and varying in less time than it takes for a spacecraft to cross the boundary. Thicknesses ranged from 500 to over 1000 km.Clear evidence for reconnection is found in the data when the magnetosheath field is southward. However, this evidence is not in the form of classic rotational discontinuity signatures. Rather, it is in the form of flux transfer events, in which reconnection starts and stops in a matter of minutes or less, resulting in the ripping off of flux tubes from the magnetosphere. Evidence for flux transfer events can be found both in the magnetosheath and the outer magnetosphere due to their alteration of the boundary normal. In particular, their presence at the time of magnetopause crossings invalidates the usual 2-dimensional analysis of magnetopause structure. Not only are these flux transfer events probably the dominant means of reconnection on the magnetopause, but they may also serve as an important source of magnetopause oscillations, and hence of pulsations in the outer magnetosphere. On two days the flux transfer rate was estimated to be of the order of 2 × 1012 Maxwells per second by the flux transfer events detected at ISEE. Events not detectable at ISEE and continued reconnection after passage of an FTE past ISEE could have resulted in an even greater reconnection rate at these times.
Book ChapterDOI

Initial ISEE magnetometer results - Magnetopause observations

TL;DR: The magnetic field profiles across the magnetopause obtained by the ISEE-1 and -2 spacecraft separated by only a few hundred kilometers are examined for four passes as discussed by the authors, during which the magnetosheath field was northward, during one pass it was slightly southward, and in two it was strongly southward.
Journal ArticleDOI

ISEE observations of flux transfer events at the dayside magnetopause

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined magnetic field measurements from the ISEE 1 and 2 spacecraft in the vicinity of the magnetopause near local noon on a typical pass when the magnetosheath field is southward.
Related Papers (5)