Reproduction of Ground Magnetic Variations During the SC and the Substorm From the Global Simulation and Biot‐Savart's Law

Abstract

In this paper, currents causing the sudden commencement (SC), the AU/AL indices, and the positive bay during the substorm are identified from the global simulation and Biot-Savart's law. Candidate currents assumed as causes of these ground magnetic variations are the ionospheric Hall current, the ionospheric Pedersen current, the field-aligned current (FAC), and other magnetospheric currents than the FAC. In general, FAC effect and Pedersen current effect cancel out each other under the restriction of Fukushima's theorem. During the SC, for instance, the midlatitude preliminary positive impulse appears in the prenoon and midlatitude preliminary reverse impulse (PRI) appears in the postnoon, due to the remaining effect of the Hall current. However, violations of the Fukushima's theorem are also common such as in the cases of the equatorial PRI, the auroral electrojet, and the positive bay. The equatorial PRI caused by the Pedersen current appears both in the prenoon and postnoon regions. In the auroral region, the Hall current effect prevails over other currents so much and determines the AU/AL indices only from it regardless other currents. The midlatitude positive bay on the nightside is generated by the effect of the FAC. From these diverse reproduction of ground magnetic variations, a further verification is given for the global simulation in reproductions of the magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling process.