All‐Sky Imager and Geosynchronous Spacecraft Analysis of Nighttime Magnetic Perturbation Events Observed in Arctic Canada
Journal Article
Overview
abstract
Abstract; ; Magnetic perturbation events (MPEs) can potentially produce geomagnetically‐induced currents (GICs) within power grids, rail lines, oil pipelines, and disrupt communications. Predicting when and where these events will occur is not yet possible. It is currently unclear what range of auroral and magnetospheric features correlate with MPEs. Identifying these features will make predicting them easier. In this study, we examine the all sky images and magnetically conjugate geosynchronous Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) 13 particle data during 121 MPEs identified in the Kuujjuarapik, Canada ground magnetometer by Engebretson et al. (2021,; https://doi.org/10.1029/2021ja029465; , 2022,; https://doi.org/10.1029/2022ja030580; ). From this examination, we provide some basic statistics. In the all sky image data, we find a wide range of auroral features associated with MPEs, including auroral streamers, westward traveling surges, pseudo breakups, poleward boundary intensifications, auroral omegas, folds/waves, and vortices. Twenty‐Seven of 42 MPEs with all sky images including streamers, auroral omegas, and westward traveling surges are indirectly associated with high speed earthward flows in the magnetotail. Similarly, in the GOES 13 magnetic field and particle data we find a range of features including magnetic field dipolarizations, dispersionless and dispersed particle injections, flux increases, flux decreases, flux dropouts, and no changes in the particle flux levels. Forty‐four of 121 MPEs with geosynchronous electron data (57 of 121 MPEs with ion data) have particle injections, which are a good proxy for high speed earthward flows. These auroral and geosynchronous spacecraft results suggest that high speed earthward flows in the magnetotail are a common magnetospheric source of MPEs. While some of these features are indirect evidence of high speed earthward flows in the magnetotail, our results indicate that there is a wide range of auroral and magnetospheric features, making predicting MPEs difficult.;
