Magnetospheric electric fields and plasma sheet injection to low L‐shells during the 4–5 June 1991 magnetic storm: Comparison between the Rice Convection Model and observations

Abstract

.[1] The major magnetic storm of 4-5 June 1991 was well observed with the Combined Release and Radiation Experiment (CRRES) satellite in the duskside inner magnetosphere and with three Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) spacecraft in the polar ionosphere. These observations are compared to results from the Rice Convection Model (RCM), which calculates the inner magnetospheric electric field and particle distribution self-consistently. This case study, which uses the most complete RCM runs to date, demonstrates two significant features of magnetospheric storms, the development of subauroral polarization streams (SAPS) and plasma-sheet particle injection deep into the inner magnetosphere. In particular, the RCM predicts the electric field peak near L = 4 that is observed by the CRRES satellite during the second injection. The RCM calculations and DMSP data both show SAPS events with similar general characteristics, though there is no detailed point-by-point agreement. In the simulation, SAPS are generated by the deep penetration of plasma sheet protons to L < 4 and Earthward of the plasma sheet electrons. Similarly, the vast majority of the ions that make up the storm-time ring current came from the plasma sheet; most of the particles that made up the prestorm quiet-time ring current escaped through the dayside magnetopause during ring current injection. The RCM demonstrates the capability of plasma sheet ions to reach all ring current orbits and predicts the location of the injected particles (both ions and electrons) reasonably well. However, it overpredicts the ion flux in the inner magnetosphere.

Space Weather Effects Produced by the Ring Current Particles

“…showed that they were directly linked to the partial ring current localized pressure peak, and other observations and numerical modeling has confirmed and further quantified this relationship (e.g. Garner et al 2004;Mishin and Burke 2005;Yu et al 2015;Yuan et al 2016;Califf et al 2016). SAPS are relatively stable during storms, being a persistent feature across the evening sector that can last for many hours (e.g.…”

The spatial distribution of region 2 field-aligned currents relative to subauroral polarization stream

“…The subauroral polarization stream (SAPS) is one of the interesting and important features of the magnetosphereionosphere-thermosphere coupling processes in the subauroral region, representing the rapid westward plasma flow predominantly in the dusk and premidnight sector (16-24 magnetic local time, MLT) (e.g., Galperin et al, 1974;Spiro et al, 1979;Anderson et al, 1991Anderson et al, , 1993Anderson et al, , 2001Yeh et al, 1991;Fejer and Scherliess, 1998;Scherliess and Fejer, 1998;Rowland and Wygant, 1998;Wygant et al, 1998;Ridley et al, 2002;Foster and Vo, 2002;Garner et al, 2004;Figueiredo et al, 2004;Liemohn et al, 2005;Jensen and Fejer, 2007;Zheng et al, 2008;Erickson et al, 2010Erickson et al, , 2011Clausen et al, 2012;Mishin, 2013). Two types of plasma flows have been classified in the literature: (1) polarization jets (PJ) (Galperin et al, 1974) or subauroral ion drifts (SAIDS) (Spiro et al, 1979), featured as more intense (∼ 1000 m s −1 ) and latitudinally confined (≤ 1 • latitude) plasma flow; and (2) a wider latitudinal extent and longer duration of plasma flow (Yeh et al, 1991).…”

Storm-time meridional flows: a comparison of CINDI observations and model results

“…While the magnitude becomes much smaller, the penetration effect continues into the recovery phase of the storm, indicating that the shielding is never strong during the event as previously discussed by Garner et al (2004). The continuous penetration is unexpected from the strong shielding previously estimated by Spiro et al (1988) in which the strong shielding was established after steady conditions were maintained for an hour or more.…”

“…Furthermore, the time dependent boundary location is also required for the electrodynamic potential solver that specifies the boundary condition separating out the equatorward region of the self-consistent calculation from the region with the polar cap potential specified by the input model. Previous studies showed that higher plasmasheet temperature or smaller plasmasheet density generates weaker shielding and a more penetrating electric field at lower latitudes (Spiro et al, 1988;Garner et al, 2004). As input parameters, the RCM requires PV 5/3 (where P is thermodynamic pressure; V is flux tube volume, 5/3 is gamma) and TV 2/3 at 13 R E in the plasmasheet to be estimated from a statistical model, Tsyganenko and Mukai (2003) for this study.…”