Systems science of the magnetosphere: Creating indices of substorm activity, of the substorm‐injected electron population, and of the electron radiation belt

Abstract To more fully monitor the elements of the magnetosphere‐ionosphere system and its activity, indices are created to quantify the rate of substorm onset occurrence, the rate of substorm activations, the intensity of the 130 keV substorm‐injected electrons and the intensity of the 1.2 MeV radiation‐belt electrons. The reactions of these various indices to the onset of isolated substorms are examined, and the behaviors of the indices are explored before and during high‐speed‐stream‐driven storms and during solar wind rarefactions after high‐speed streams. Autocorrelation functions of the indices are analyzed and compared with autocorrelation functions of solar wind parameters and geomagnetic indices. Lagged‐time correlations between the indices and solar wind variables and geomagnetic indices are surveyed. These 1 h resolution indices are available to the research community.