Quantifying the Effects of Inductive Electric Fields in The Terrestrial Magnetosphere

Raluca Ilie, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Usage Details

The relative contribution of potential and inductive electric field-driven convection resulting in the development of the storm-time ring current and therefore the development and decay of a geomagnetic storm, has remained an unresolved question in geospace research due to the challenging task of assessing the inductive effects which arise from the presence of time dependent magnetic field. Such assessment requires global magnetosphere simulations to investigate both the large-scale coupling of the solar wind-ionosphere-magnetosphere environment and the micro-scale processes that govern this region. The system behavior is mainly encompassed in the coupling of the system elements rather than the components that make up the system, so describing its complexity requires self consistent coupling between the elements. The Space Weather Modeling Framework is an excellent tool for this purpose since it combines a global magnetospheric solution from the BATS-R-US code with regional solutions of several specific places in geospace. Using a petascale machine like Blue Waters will allow us to self-consistently address the entire sequence of events leading to the development of a geomagnetic storm, and for the first time to assess the implications of the induced electric fields to the enhancements of the near-Earth currents. This will provide the connection between the macro-scale dynamics and micro-scale processes leading to the development of a geomagnetic storm.