Magnetosphere dynamics under disturbed conditions on 23–27 November, 1986

Abstract

The magnetospheric magnetic field is highly time-dependent and may undergo rapid changes during magnetospheric substorms and geomagnetic storms. These are events during which the most interesting magnetospheric physics phenomena (auroras, precipitations at high latitudes, acceleration of particle beams in the tail etc.) occur. The dynamics of the magnetospheric large-scale current systems was studied for magnetic storm on 23–27 November, 1986 using the dynamic paraboloid model and both ground based and satellite data. Magnetic field variations at the Earth's surface are calculated and compared with the Dst index. Magnetopause currents', ring current's and tail current's contributions to Dst are of about the same order of magnitude. The energy stored in the tail correlates strongly with the power delivered from solar wind to the magnetosphere. The total energy of ring current particles and AL increases when interplanetary magnetic field is southward. However, AL responded to southward interplanetary magnetic field earlier than the total energy of the ring current particles did.