2015•2015 AGU Fall MeetingRequires access
Storm- Time Dynamics of Ring Current Protons: Implications for the Long-Term Energy Budget in the Inner Magnetosphere.
M. Gkioulidou, A. Y. Ukhorskiy, D. G. Mitchell, L. J. Lanzerotti
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Abstract
Our investigation of the long-term ring current proton pressure evolution in Earth's inner magnetosphere based on Van Allen Probes data shows drastically different behavior of the low- and high- energy components of the ring current proton population with respect to the SYM-H index variation. We found that while the low-energy component of the protons ( 100 keV) varies on much longer timescales and shows either no correlation or anticorrelation with the absolute value of SYM-H index. Our study also shows that the contributions of the low- and high- energy protons to the inner magnetosphere energy content are comparable. Thus, our results conclusively demonstrate that proton dynamics, and as a result the energy budget in the inner magnetosphere, do not vary strictly on storm time timescales as those are defined by the SYM-H index.