A new magnetic index based on the external part of vertical geomagnetic variations

Abstract

Variations of geomagnetic components X, Y, and Z recorded in 19 Intermagnet European observatories in 2004 were analysed. The original data from all observatories were preliminarily processed. In the first step, periods longer than three hours were filtered out. In the second step, variations of vertical geomagnetic component Z were separated into external and internal parts. We introduced a non-dimensional index η defined as the square root of a ratio of the energy of the external part of the vertical component to that of the horizontal components. Maps of the surface distribution of a new magnetic index η for the area of Europe at selected time periods were created, and their time changes are presented. The time changes of η for selected observatories are also shown. Moreover, we discuss a very interesting phenomenon we discovered, that has never been described in geophysical literature. Namely, in the recordings of all the observatories we noticed the presence of very regular variations, observed almost exclusively in the vertical component Z, which is quite unusual. These regular variations occur in the form of sinusoidal “wave packets”. The amplitudes of these variations do not depend on the geomagnetic latitude and appear in the records of all the observatories we analyzed. They occur in quiet days, which suggests that their source is in the ionosphere.