Analysis of cosmic ray, solar wind energies, components of Earth’s magnetic field, and ionospheric total electron content during solar superstorm of November 18–22, 2003

Abstract

This paper studies the impacts of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) preceding storm (November 18–22, 2003) on several space weather components. The comprehensive study of different parameters such as solar wind speed, density, plasma temperature, plasma pressure, auroral electrojet, SYM-H, energy transfer, components of Earth’s magnetic field, total electron content, and cosmic ray received by Earth during the ICME storm has been studied, which accounts for the more precise knowledge of the storm from different dimensions. The solar storm of November 2003 had SYM-H value of − 472 nT. During the main phase of the storm, the velocity of solar wind reached approximately to 500 km/s, and plasma pressure cumulated to around 20 nPa. The total energy dissipated during the storm in the magnetosphere has been converted in the form of ring current, joule heating, and auroral precipitation. The joule heating leads to modification in thermospheric contents and traveling atmospheric contents that result in further modification of the density, composition, circulation, and dynamics of ionosphere–thermosphere system. This phenomena further result in the escalation and slumping of TEC. We found out the decrease in rate of cosmic ray received by the Earth during the main phase of the storm, which lead to our conclusion that there exists inverse relation between strength of solar storm and amount of cosmic ray fluxes received by the Earth. In addition, the study made on the change in TEC and SYM-H during the event hinted us toward the possible changes in the space weather caused by the solar superstorm of November 18–22, 2003.