IMAGE-RAM Comparisons of the Stormtime Ring Current

Details IMAGE-RAM Comparisons of the Stormtime Ring Current IMAGE-RAM Comparisons of the Stormtime Ring Current

May 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agusm..sm21a01l&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2001, abstract #SM21A-01 INVITED

Other

2730 Magnetosphere--Inner, 2753 Numerical Modeling, 2760 Plasma Convection, 2778 Ring Current, 2788 Storms And Substorms

Scientific paper

New ENA images of the ring current, provided by the IMAGE mission, represent a major step forward in our ability to understand ring current growth and evolution. These images provide instantaneous snapshots of the ring current with temporal resolution of minutes. Past data - model comparisons have relied on climatologies based on measurements averaged over many months and/or single-point satellite observations in retricted local time sectors during a single event. We take advantage of the unique features of the ENA imaging technique to investigate the global morphology of the ring current ion distribution for a number of magnetic storm events from the year 2000. A kinetic transport model (Michigan version of RAM) is used to calculate the energetic neutral atom phase space distribution function in the inner magnetosphere, and these are forward-modeled into simulated IMAGE-HENA data. Comparison of the measured and modeled images provide insight into the underlying physical processes driving the global structure of the ring current. We focus on the conversion of open-to-closed drift paths, the transition from asymmetric to symmetric local time distributions, the relationship between ring current decay processes and plasmaspheric structures, evidence for significant "flow-out" losses and other processes that leave clear signatures in the global morphology. We use these features to test global scale convection electric field models. Limitations of this comparison method, especially non-uniqueness issues, are examined in terms of the physical processes controlling ring current formation and evolution.

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