Open AccessIntense space storms: Critical issues and open disputes
Author(s) -
Daglis I. A.,
Kozyra J. U.,
Kamide Y.,
Vassiliadis D.,
Sharma A. S.,
Liemohn M. W.,
Gonzalez W. D.,
Tsurutani B. T.,
Lu G.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.67
H-Index - 298
eISSN - 2156-2202
pISSN - 0148-0227
DOI - 10.1029/2002ja009722
Subject(s) - ring current , storm , interplanetary spaceflight , geomagnetic storm , space weather , predictability , current (fluid) , physics , meteorology , geophysics , environmental science , magnetosphere , atmospheric sciences , solar wind , nuclear physics , plasma , quantum mechanics , thermodynamics
This paper addresses the question of particular characteristics and causes of intense space storms. We focus on several unresolved issues, which are critical to storm research and often nourish open disputes: the extent of interplanetary driving, the role of substorms in storm dynamics through the acceleration of particles to ring current energies, the identity of the lead agent of fast ring current decay right after storm maximum and the cause of the two‐phase recovery of intense storms, the global morphology of the storm‐time ring current, and the predictability of intense storms. Space storm physics has been driven by several more or less successful paradigms during the four decades following the dawn of the space flight era. However, recent suggestions and conclusions resulting from a number of observational and modeling studies have brought significant constraints to several of these paradigms. Thus for example, interplanetary driving through southward oriented magnetic fields is not always by itself sufficient to drive intense space storms because it is conditioned by internal magnetospheric conditions, the MLT distribution of storm‐time magnetic disturbances is often asymmetric during the storm main phase, and charge exchange is not the lead agent of ring current decay at all times.