skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Title: Statistics of geomagnetic storms: Global simulations perspective
We present results of 131 geomagnetic storm simulations using the University of Michigan Space Weather Modeling Framework Geospace configuration. We compare the geomagnetic indices derived from the simulation with those observed, and use 2D cuts in the noon-midnight planes to compare the magnetopause locations with empirical models. We identify the location of the current sheet center and look at the plasma parameters to deduce tail dynamics. We show that the simulation produces geomagnetic index distributions similar to those observed, and that their relationship to the solar wind driver is similar to that observed. While the magnitudes of the Dst and polar cap potentials are close to those observed, the simulated AL index is consistently underestimated. Analysis of the magnetopause position reveals that the subsolar position agrees well with an empirical model, but that the tail flaring in the simulation is much smaller than that in the empirical model. The magnetotail and ring currents are closely correlated with the Dst index, and reveal a strong contribution of the tail current beyond 8 R E to the Dst index during the storm main phase.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2033563
PAR ID:
10366214
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences
Volume:
9
ISSN:
2296-987X
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Abstract EUropean Heliospheric FORecasting Information Asset (EUHFORIA) is a physics‐based data‐driven solar wind and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) propagation model designed for space weather forecasting and event analysis investigations. Although EUHFORIA can predict the solar wind plasma and magnetic field properties at Earth, it is not equipped to quantify the geo‐effectiveness of the solar transients in terms of geomagnetic indices like the disturbance storm time (Dst) index and the auroral indices, that quantify the impact of the magnetized plasma encounters on Earth's magnetosphere. Therefore, we couple EUHFORIA with the Open Geospace General Circulation Model (OpenGGCM), a magnetohydrodynamic model of the response of Earth's magnetosphere, ionosphere, and thermosphere to transient solar wind characteristics. In this coupling, OpenGGCM is driven by the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field obtained from EUHFORIA simulations to produce the magnetospheric and ionospheric response to the CMEs. This coupling is validated with two observed geo‐effective CME events driven with the spheromak flux‐rope CME model. We compare these simulation results with the indices obtained from OpenGGCM simulations driven by the measured solar wind data from spacecraft. We further employ the dynamic time warping (DTW) technique to assess the model performance in predicting Dst. The main highlight of this study is to use EUHFORIA simulated time series to predict the Dst and auroral indices 1–2 days in advance, as compared to using the observed solar wind data at L1, which only provides predictions 1–2 hr before the actual impact. 
    more » « less
  2. Abstract Thermospheric density influences the atmospheric drag and is crucial for space missions. This paper introduces a global thermospheric density prediction framework based on a deep evidential method. The proposed framework predicts thermospheric density at the required time and geographic position with given geomagnetic and solar indices. It is called global to differentiate it from existing research that only predicts density along a satellite orbit. Through the deep evidential method, we assimilate data from various sources including solar and geomagnetic conditions, accelerometer‐derived density data, and empirical models including the Jacchia‐Bowman model (JB‐2008) and the Naval Research Laboratory Mass Spectrometer and Incoherent Scatter Radar Extended (NRLMSISE‐00) model. The framework is investigated on five test cases along various satellites from 2003 to 2015 involving geomagnetic storms with Disturbance Storm Time (Dst) values smaller than −50 . Results show that the proposed framework can generate density with higher accuracy than the two empirical models. It can also obtain reliable uncertainty estimations. Global density estimations at altitudes from 200 to 550 km are also presented and compared with empirical models on both quiet and storm conditions. 
    more » « less
  3. Abstract Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) data show that seed electrons generated by sub‐storm injections play a role in amplifying chorus waves in the magnetosphere. The wave‐particle interaction leads to rapid heating and acceleration of electrons from 10's of keV to 10's of MeV energies. In this work, we examined the changes in the radiation belt during geomagnetic storm events by studying the RBSP REPT, solar wind, AL, SML, and Dst data in conjunction with the WINDMI model of the magnetosphere. The field‐aligned current output from the model is integrated to generate a proxy E index for various energy bands. These E indices track electron energization from 40 KeV to 20 MeV in the radiation belts. The indices are compared to RBSP data and GOES data. Our proxy indices correspond well to the energization data for electron energy bands between 1.8 and 7.7 MeV. Each E index has a unique empirical loss rate term (τL), an empirical time delay term (τD), and a gain value, that are fit to the observations. These empirical parameters were adjusted to examine the delay and charging rates associated with different energy bands. We observed that theτLandτDvalues are clustered for each energy band.τLandτDconsistently increase going from 1.8 to 7.7 MeV in electron energy fluxEeand the dropout interval increases with increasing energy level. The average trend of ΔτD/ΔEewas 4.1 hr/MeV and the average trend of ΔτL/ΔEewas 2.82 hr/MeV. 
    more » « less
  4. Abstract An intriguing aspect of the famous September 2, 1859 geomagnetic disturbance (or “Carrington” event) is the horizontal magnetic (BH) data set measured in Colaba, India (magnetic latitude approximately 20°N). The field exhibits a sharp decrease of over 1,600 nT and a quick recovery of about 1,300 nT, all within a few hours during the daytime. The mechanism behind this has previously been attributed to magnetospheric processes, ionospheric processes or a combination of both. In this study, we outline our efforts to replicate this low‐latitude magnetic field using the Space Weather Modeling Framework. By simulating an extremely high pressure solar wind scenario, we can emulate the low‐latitude surface magnetic signal at Colaba. In our simulation, magnetospheric currents adjacent to the near‐Earth magnetopause and strong Region 1 field‐aligned currents are the main contributors to the large ColabaBH. The rapid recovery ofBHin our simulated scenario is due to the retreat of these magnetospheric currents as the magnetosphere expands, as opposed to ring current dynamics. In addition, we find that the scenario that best emulated the surface magnetic field observations during the Carrington event had a minimum calculated Dst value between −431 and −1,191 nT, indicating that Dst may not be a suitable estimate of storm intensity for this kind of event. 
    more » « less
  5. Abstract We report on the solar and interplanetary (IP) causes of the third largest geomagnetic storm (26 August 2018) in solar cycle 24. The underlying coronal mass ejection (CME) originating from a quiescent filament region becomes a 440 km/s magnetic cloud (MC) at 1 au after ∼5 days. The prolonged CME acceleration (for ∼24 hr) coincides with the time profiles of the post‐eruption arcade intensity and reconnected flux. Chen et al. (2019,https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab3f36) obtain a lower speed since they assumed that the CME does not accelerate after ∼12 hr. The presence of multiple coronal holes near the filament channel and the high‐speed wind from them seem to have the combined effect of producing complex rotation in the corona and IP medium resulting in a high‐inclination MC. The Dst time profile in the main phase steepens significantly (rapid increase in storm intensity) coincident with the density increase (prominence material) in the second half of the MC. Simulations using the Comprehensive Inner Magnetosphere‐Ionosphere model show that a higher ring current energy results from larger dynamic pressure (density) in MCs. Furthermore, the Dst index is highly correlated with the main‐phase time integral of the ring current injection that includes density, consistent with the simulations. A complex temporal structure develops in the storm main phase if the underlying MC has a complex density structure during intervals of southward IP magnetic field. We conclude that the high intensity of the storm results from the prolonged CME acceleration, complex rotation of the CME flux rope, and the high density in the 1‐au MC. 
    more » « less