Open AccessThe GIC and Geomagnetic Response Over Fennoscandia to the 7–8 September 2017 Geomagnetic Storm
Author(s) -
Dimmock A. P.,
Rosenqvist L.,
Hall JO.,
Viljanen A.,
Yordanova E.,
Honkonen I.,
André M.,
Sjöberg E. C.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
space weather
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.254
H-Index - 56
ISSN - 1542-7390
DOI - 10.1029/2018sw002132
Subject(s) - geomagnetically induced current , earth's magnetic field , geomagnetic storm , ionosphere , space weather , event (particle physics) , amplitude , magnetometer , geology , geophysics , storm , local time , meteorology , atmospheric sciences , physics , magnetic field , mathematics , astrophysics , statistics , quantum mechanics
Between 7 and 8 September 2017, Earth experienced extreme space weather events. We have combined measurements made by the IMAGE magnetometer array, ionospheric equivalent currents, geomagnetically induced current (GIC) recordings in the Finnish natural gas pipeline, and multiple ground conductivity models to study the Fennoscandia ground effects. This unique analysis has revealed multiple interesting physical and technical insights. We show that although the 7–8 September event was significant by global indices ( D s t ∼150 nT), it produced an unexpectedly large peak GIC. It is intriguing that our peak GIC did not occur during the intervals of largest geomagnetic depressions, nor was there any clear upstream trigger. Another important insight into this event is that unusually large and rare GIC amplitudes (>10 A) occurred in multiple Magnetic Local Time (MLT) sectors and could be associated with westward and eastward electrojets. We were also successfully able to model the geoelectric field and GIC using multiple models, thus providing a further important validation of these models for an extreme event. A key result from our multiple conductivity model comparison was the good agreement between the temporal features of 1‐D and 3‐D model results. This provides an important justification for past and future uses of 1‐D models at Mäntsälä which is highly relevant to additional uses of this data set. Although the temporal agreement (after scaling) was good, we found a large (factor of 4) difference in the amplitudes between local and global ground models due to the difference in model conductivities. Thus, going forward, obtaining accurate ground conductivity values are key for GIC modeling.