Rights statement: ©2013. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The differences between storms driven by helmet streamer CIRs and storms driven by pseudostreamer CIRs
AU - Borovsky, Joseph E.
AU - Denton, Michael
N1 - ©2013. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2013/9
Y1 - 2013/9
N2 - A corotating interaction region (CIR) is formed when fast coronal hole origin solar wind overtakes slow solar wind and forms a region of compressed plasma and magnetic field. The slow wind upstream of the coronal hole fast wind can be either of helmet streamer origin or pseudostreamer origin. For a collection of 125 CIR-driven geomagnetic storms, the slow wind ahead of each CIR is examined; for those storm not containing ejecta, each CIR is categorized as a helmet streamer CIR (74 of the 125 storms) or a pseudostreamer CIR (11 of the 125 storms). Separate superposed epoch studies are performed on the two groups to discern the differences between storms driven by pseudostreamer CIRs and those driven by helmet streamer CIRs. A major difference is that pseudostreamer CIR storms tend not to have a calm before the storm, so the outer plasmasphere does not refill before storm onset, and the outer electron radiation belt does not exhibit a pre-storm decay. The superdense plasma sheet is weaker for pseudostreamer CIR storms, and the dropout of the electron radiation belt is weaker. Pseudostreamer CIR storms and helmet streamer CIR storms tend to be of the same strength as measured by the magnitude of Kp, MBI (midnight boundary index), or Dst.
AB - A corotating interaction region (CIR) is formed when fast coronal hole origin solar wind overtakes slow solar wind and forms a region of compressed plasma and magnetic field. The slow wind upstream of the coronal hole fast wind can be either of helmet streamer origin or pseudostreamer origin. For a collection of 125 CIR-driven geomagnetic storms, the slow wind ahead of each CIR is examined; for those storm not containing ejecta, each CIR is categorized as a helmet streamer CIR (74 of the 125 storms) or a pseudostreamer CIR (11 of the 125 storms). Separate superposed epoch studies are performed on the two groups to discern the differences between storms driven by pseudostreamer CIRs and those driven by helmet streamer CIRs. A major difference is that pseudostreamer CIR storms tend not to have a calm before the storm, so the outer plasmasphere does not refill before storm onset, and the outer electron radiation belt does not exhibit a pre-storm decay. The superdense plasma sheet is weaker for pseudostreamer CIR storms, and the dropout of the electron radiation belt is weaker. Pseudostreamer CIR storms and helmet streamer CIR storms tend to be of the same strength as measured by the magnitude of Kp, MBI (midnight boundary index), or Dst.
KW - geomagnetic storms
KW - pseudostreamers
KW - calm before the storm
KW - geomagnetic storms;pseudostreamers;corotating interaction regions;calm before the storm
U2 - 10.1002/jgra.50524
DO - 10.1002/jgra.50524
M3 - Journal article
VL - 118
SP - 5506
EP - 5521
JO - Journal of Geophysical Research
JF - Journal of Geophysical Research
SN - 0148-0227
IS - 9
ER -