Magnetospheric Driving of Saturn's Thermosphere during Storm-Like Events

Details Magnetospheric Driving of Saturn's Thermosphere during Storm-Like Events Magnetospheric Driving of Saturn's Thermosphere during Storm-Like Events

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufmsm32a..05a&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #SM32A-05

Physics

[5729] Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets / Ionospheres, [5737] Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets / Magnetospheres, [5744] Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets / Orbital And Rotational Dynamics, [6275] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Saturn

Scientific paper

Observations of Saturn's aurora have provided compelling evidence that the main oval is coincident with the boundary between open and closed magnetic flux, and that the surface area interior to this oval can change dramatically during strong episodes of magnetic reconnection ('substorms') in the magnetotail region. We show results of numerical experiments using the UCL axisymmetric model of Saturn's thermosphere (Smith et al, Ann. Geo., 2005) which reveal the following aspects thermospheric flow during such events: (i) The enormous inertia of the thermosphere introduces a delay of order 1 planetary day between the peak magnetospheric and peak thermospheric angular velocities. (ii) This delay results in a period where thermospheric rotation exceeds magnetospheric, and the corresponding field-aligned currents transfer angular momentum from the magnetosphere to atmosphere, rather than the reverse situation which pertains in the steady state. (iii) The thermospheric inertia also leads to flow speeds significantly more rapid (>10%) than the steady state, up to several planetary days after storm subsidence.

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