ALBERT

Description: We report multi-instrument observations during an isolated substorm on 17 October 1989. The European Incoherent Scatter (EISCAT) radar operated in the SP-UK-POLI mode measuring ionospheric convection at latitudes 71 deg Lambda - 78 deg Lambda. Sub-Auroral Magnetometer Network (SAMNET) and the EISCAT Magnetometer Cross provide information on the timing of substorm expansion phase onset and subsequent intensifications, as well as the location of the field aligned and ionospheric currents associated with the substorm current wedge. Interplanetary Monitoring Platform-8 (IMP-8) magnetic field data are also included. Evidence of a substorm growth phase is provided by the equatorward motion of a flow reversal boundary across the EISCAT radar field of view at 2130 MLT, following a southward turning of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). We infer that the polar cap expanded as a result of the addition of open magnetic flux in the tail lobes during this interval. The flow reversal boundary, which is a lower limit to the polar cap boundary, reached an invariant latitude equatorward of 71 deg Lambda by the time of the expansion phase onset. We conclude that the substorm onset region in the ionosphere, defined by the westward electrojet, mapped to a part of the tail radially earthward of the boundary between open and closed magnetic flux, the distant neutral line. Thus the substorm was not initiated at the distant neutral line, although there is evidence that it remained active during the expansion phase.

Description: We report on the response of high-latitude ionospheric convection during the magnetic storm of March 20-21 1990. IMP-8 measurements of solar wind plasma and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), ionospheric convection flow measurements from the Wick and Goose Bay coherent radars, EISCAT, Millstone Hill and Sondrestorm incoherent radars and three digisondes at Millstone Hill, Goose Bay and Qaanaaq are presented. Two intervals of particular interest have been indentified. The first starts with a storm sudden commencement at 2243 UT on March 20 and includes the ionospheric activity in the following 7 h. The response time of the ionospheric convection to the southward tuning of the IMF in the dusk to midnight local times is found to be approximately half that measured in a similar study at comparable local times during more normal solar wind conditions. A subsequent reconfiguration of the nightside convection pattern was also observed, although it was not possible to distinguish between effects due to possible changes in B(sub y) and effects due to substorm activity. The second interval, 1200-2100 UT 21 March 1990, included a southward turning of the IMF which resulted in the B(sub z) component becoming -10 nT. The response time on the dayside to this change in the IMF at the magnetopause was approximately 15 min to 30 min which is a factor of approximately 2 greater than those previously measured at higher latitudes. A movement of the nightside flow reversal, possibly driven by current systems associated with the substorm expansion phases, was observed, implying that the nightside convection pattern can be dominated by substorm activity.