Ionospheric signatures of cusp-latitude Pc 3 pulsations
- Augsburg College, Minneapolis, MN (USA)
- Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis (USA)
- Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham (USA)
It has been well established that many of the disturbances in the Earth's magnetosphere, such as auroral substorms, are a response to variations in the solar wind that continually sweeps from the Sun past the Earth and other planets. Studies over the past several years, most recently reviewed by Odera (1986) and Arnoldy at el. (1988), have shown that Pc 3 pulsations, a class of ultra-low-frequency waves in the Earth's magnetic field with periods between 15 and 40 seconds, are also directly related to activity in the solar wind just upstream of the Earth. The authors present in this report new observations from South Pole Station, Antarctica, which during certain hours every day is located under the nominal position of the magnetospheric cleft/cusp region. There has been ample evidence that plasmas from interplanetary space can penetrate to ionospheric altitudes in the cusp region. Two earlier papers based on South Pole data noted that large-amplitude, narrowband Pc 3 magnetic pulsations occurred at South Pole Station near local magnetic noon when the interplanetary magnetic field was aligned near the Earth-Sun direction (low interplanetary magnetic field cone angle). They have now found evidence of these pulsations in data from other South Pole instruments as well.
- OSTI ID:
- 5444246
- Journal Information:
- Antarctic Journal of the United States; (United States), Vol. 23:5; ISSN 0003-5335
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
GENERAL PHYSICS
GEOMAGNETIC FIELD
PULSATIONS
ANTARCTICA
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
EARTH MAGNETOSPHERE
ELECTRON PRECIPITATION
HYDROMAGNETIC WAVES
INTERPLANETARY MAGNETIC FIELDS
IONOSPHERE
POLAR CUSP
RADIOWAVE RADIATION
SOLAR WIND
WAVE PACKETS
ANTARCTIC REGIONS
CHARGED-PARTICLE PRECIPITATION
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
EVALUATION
MAGNETIC FIELDS
PLANETARY IONOSPHERES
POLAR REGIONS
RADIATIONS
SOLAR ACTIVITY
640201* - Atmospheric Physics- Auroral
Ionospheric
& Magetospheric Phenomena