Magnetosphere response to the IMF turning from north to south

Abstract

In this paper, the Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF) is used to simulate the real-time response of the magnetosphere to a solar wind event on June 5, 1998, in which the interplanetary magnetic field shifted its direction from north to south. Since most current models do not take into account convective effects of the inner magnetosphere, we first study the importance of Rice Convection Model (RCM) in the global model. We then focus on the following four aspects of the magnetosphere’s response: the magnetosphere’s density distribution, the structure of its magnetic field lines, the area of the polar cap boundary, and the corresponding ionospheric current change. We find that (1) when the IMF changes from north to south in this event, high magnetosheath density is observed to flow downstream along the magnetopause with the solar wind; low-latitude reconnection at dayside occurs under the southward IMF, while the magnetic field lines in the tail lobe caudal, caused by the nightside high latitude reconnection, extend into the interplanetary space. Open magnetic field lines exist simultaneously at both high and low latitudes at the magnetopause; (2) the area of the polar cap is obviously increased if the IMF turns from the north to the south; this observation is highly consistent with empirical observations; (3) the ionospheric field align current in the northern hemisphere is stronger than in the southern hemisphere and also increases as the IMF changes from north to south. SWMF with the Rice Convection effect provides reliable modeling of the magnetospheric and ionospheric response to this solar wind variation.