ESA’s Cluster and Swarm missions along with measurements from the ground, scientists have confirmed that bursty bulk flows, which are created after the reconnection of the two magnetic field lines in the tail of the magnetosphere shown towards the end of the animation, are directly connected to abrupt changes in the magnetic field near Earth’s surface, which can cause damage to pipelines and electrical power lines. The animation illustrates how a solar storm in 2015 was used as an example with data from Cluster and Swarm to examine bursty bulk flows – bursts of particles in the magnetotail – which contribute to large-scale convection of material towards Earth during geomagnetically active times, and which are associated with features in the northern lights known as auroral streamers. Data from Swarm showed corresponding large perturbations closer to Earth associated with connecting field-aligned currents from the outer regions containing the flows. Together with other measurements taken from Earth’s surface, the research confirmed that intense magnetic field perturbations near Earth are connected to the arrival of bursty bulk flows further out in space. The results were published in Geophysical Research Letters.
Read full story: Swarm and Cluster get to the bottom of geomagnetic storms