A correlative comparison of the ring current and auroral electrojets using geomagnetic indices

From a study of the 21 largest geomagnetic storms during solar cycle 21, a strong correlation is established between the ring current index Dst and the time‐weighted accumulation of the 1‐hour auroral electrojet indices, AE and AL . The time‐weighted accumulation corresponds to convolution of the auroral electrojet indices with an exponential weighting function with an e ‐folding time of 9.4 hours. The weighted indices AE w and AL w have correlation coefficients against Dst ranging between 0.8 and 0.95 for 20 of the 21 storms. Correlation over the entire solar cycle 21 database is also strong but not as strong as for an individual storm. A set of simple Dst prediction functions provide a first approximation of the inferred dependence, but the specific functional relationship of Dst ( AE w ) or Dst ( AL w ) varies from one storm to the next in a systematic way. This variation reveals a missing parametric dependence in the transfer function. However, our results indicate that auroral electrojet indices are potentially useful for predicting storm time enhancements of ring current intensity with a few hours lead time.