Timescales of Dayside and Nightside Field-Aligned Current Response to Changes in Solar Wind-Magnetosphere Coupling

• Published in: Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
• Main Authors: Milan, SE, Carter, JA, Sangha, H, Laundal, KM, Ostgaard, N, Tenfjord, P, Reistad, JP, Snekvik, K, Coxon, JC, Korth, H, Anderson, BJ
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Geophysical Union (AGU), Wiley 2019
• Subjects: Science & Technology; Physical Sciences; Astronomy & Astrophysics; magnetosphere; ionosphere; currents; INTERPLANETARY MAGNETIC-FIELD; IMF B-Y; BIRKELAND CURRENTS; IONOSPHERIC CONVECTION; EARTHS MAGNETOTAIL; MAGNETOMETER DATA; NORTHWARD; SUBSTORMS; INTERVALS; SYSTEM; Canada; Norway; South Pole; Bergen; Birkeland; Omni; South pole
• Online Access: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018JA025645; http://hdl.handle.net/2381/44762; https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JA025645

Principal component analysis is performed on Birkeland or field-aligned current (FAC) measurements from the Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment, to determine the response of dayside and nightside FACs to reversals in the orientation of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) and the occurrence of substorms. Dayside FACs respond promptly to changes in IMF BY , but the nightside response is delayed by up to an hour and can take up to 4 hr to develop fully, especially during northward IMF. Nightside FAC asymmetries grow during substorm growth phase when the IMF has a significant BY component, and also promptly at substorm onset. Our findings suggest that magnetotail twisting and/or BY penetration into the magnetotail, due to subsolar reconnection with east-west orientated IMF, are the main cause of these nightside FAC asymmetries and that asymmetries also arise due to magnetotail reconnection of these twisted field lines. S. E. M. and J. A. C. were supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), UK, grant ST/N000749/1; H. S. was supported by a STFC studentship. The work at the Birkeland Centre for Space Centre, University of Bergen, Norway, was supported by the Research Council of Norway/CoE under contract 223252/F50. We thank the AMPERE team and the AMPERE Science Center for providing the Iridium‐derived data products; AMPERE products are available at http://ampere.jhuapl.edu. The OMNI data, including solar wind parameters and geomagnetic indices, were obtained from the GSFC/SPDF OMNIWeb interface at http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov. The SuperMAG substorm list was downloaded from http://supermag.jhuapl.edu. For the ground magnetometer data from which this list was derived, we gratefully acknowledge the following: Intermagnet; USGS, Jeffrey J. Love; CARISMA, PI Ian Mann; CANMOS; The S‐RAMP Database, PI K. Yumoto and K. Shiokawa; The SPIDR database; AARI, PI Oleg Troshichev; The MACCS program, PI M. Engebretson, Geomagnetism Unit of the Geological Survey of Canada; GIMA; MEASURE, UCLA IGPP and Florida Institute of Technology; SAMBA, PI Eftyhia Zesta; 210 Chain, PI K. Yumoto; SAMNET, PI Farideh Honary; the institutes who maintain the IMAGE magnetometer array, PI Eija Tanskanen; PENGUIN; AUTUMN, PI Martin Connors; DTU Space, PI Juergen Matzka; South Pole and McMurdo Magnetometer, PIs Louis J. Lanzarotti and Alan T. Weatherwax; ICESTAR; RAPIDMAG; PENGUIn; British Artarctic Survey; McMac, PI Peter Chi; BGS, PI Susan Macmillan; Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation (IZMIRAN); GFZ, PI Juergen Matzka; MFGI, PI B. Heilig; IGFPAS, PI J. Reda; University of L'Aquila, PI M. Vellante; SuperMAG, PI Jesper W. Gjerloev. Peer-reviewed Publisher Version