The Physics of Space Plasmas

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The Physics of Space Plasmas
Magnetic Storms

• William J. Burke31October 2012 University of
  Massachusetts, Lowell

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Magnetic Storms
Lecture 7

• Historical background
• - Dessler-Parker-Sckopke - Burton-Russell-McPh
  erron relationships
• Electric fields in the inner magnetosphere
  penetration, shielding and over-shielding.
• - Single particle approach the Volland-Stern
  model
• - Fluid/multi-fluid approach The Rice
  Convection model
• Two crises (1) too much shielding (June 1991
  storm), and (2) electric field saturation
  (Bastille Day Storm)
• - Tsyganenko Magnetic inflation and
  contributors to Dst
• Siscoe-Hill and revised Volland-Stern models
• Love and Gannon Dst movies
• Transmission line analogy

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Magnetic Storms

• Magnetic Storms a brief history
• Alexander von Humboldt coined the term
  magnetic storm after watching aurorae and
  magnetic deflection over Berlin in Dec.21, 1806.
• Richard Carrington witnesses white light
  flare August 28, 1859 followed by magnetic
  storm on the next day aurorae over Havana.
• Kristin Birkeland After 1902-1903 campaign
  distinguished between polar elementary storms
  (substorms) and equatorial perturbations.
• Sydney Chapman phases of magnetic storms
• Alex Dessler Gene Parker (1959) ERC ? ?H
  at the Earths surface.
• Masahisa Sugiura Dst stations and hourly
  index to calibrate storms
• Burton et al. (1975) Predict Dst from solar
  wind/IMF

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Magnetic Storms
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Magnetic Storms
The Volland-Stern single-particle model At
the stagnation point LS the potential is
Since the last closed equipotential touches
LS gt calculate locus of this potential

• LA(f) gives shape of zero-energy Alfvén
  boundary (ZEAB)
• Still dont know what g means
• or how to relate EM to the
• interplanetary medium.

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Magnetic Storms
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Magnetic Storms
Rice Convection Model (Harel et al., JGR 1981)
Vasyliunas (1969, 1970)
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Magnetic Storms
Main Phase Electric fields and particles measured
by CRRES
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Magnetic Storms
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Magnetic Storms
Electric field and particle boundaries sampled by
DMSP F8 and CRRES
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Magnetic Storms
Magnetosphere simulation at 2200 UT on 6 April
2000
Tsyganenko, N. A., H. J. Singer, and J. C.
Kasper, Storm-time distortion of the inner
magnetosphere How severe can it get? J.
Geophys. Res., 108 (A5), 1209, 2003.
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Magnetosphere simulation at 0800 UT on 31 March
2001
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Model validation with F13 F15
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Love, J. J., and J. L. Gannon (2010), Movie-maps
of low-latitude magnetic storm disturbance, Space
Weather, 8, S06001, doi10.1029/2009SW000518.
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November 2003 storm
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Magnetic Storms

• Electric field Scaling
• Kelley et al. (2003), Penetration of the solar
  wind electric field into the
  magnetosphere/ionosphere system, GRL., 30(4),
  1158. compared electric measured with the
  Jicamarca ISR fields with the Y component of IEF
  (VBZ).
• Found the electric field in the equatorial
  ionosphere is one 15th of the electric
  field in the solar wind
• It seemed useful to compare eVS with IEFY

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Magnetic Storms
Huang, C. Y. and W. J. Burke (2004) Transient
sheets of field aligned currents observed by
DMSP during the main phase of a magnetic
superstorm, JGR, 109,A06303.
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Magnetic Storms
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Aurorae and High-Latitude Electrodynamics