Pt. Newell et al., Polar Ultraviolet Imager observations of global auroral power as a function of polar cap size and magnetotail stretching, J GEO R-S P, 106(A4), 2001, pp. 5895-5905
The Polar Ultraviolet Imager (UVI) instrument can quantitatively determine
important magnetospheric descriptors, notably including substorm onset time
and global auroral output. Previous research has related the input variabl
es of the magnetospheric system, namely solar wind parameters, to various o
utput variables. However, a complex system such as the magnetosphere includ
es, in addition to inputs and outputs, state variables. Polar cap flux and
magnetotail stretching are two such that can be estimated from the Defense
Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) series satellites. We herein determ
ine that both polar cap flux, Phi (c), and the magnetotail stretching index
, b2i, do correlate well with 40-min averages of nightside auroral power ob
served by UVI. There were a total of n = 638 distinct 40-min intervals with
in which b2i, Phi (c), and nightside auroral power could be determined. The
correlations with premidnight auroral power were r = 0.72 for Phi (c) and
r = -0.76 for b2i. The multiple-correlation coefficient of these two variab
les with nightside auroral power was 0.81. These sample correlations are fa
r better than the sample correlations of solar wind input variables to nigh
tside auroral power. Thus accurate space weather forecasting can demonstrab
ly benefit greatly by monitoring current magnetospheric state variables (no
wcasting), rather than attempting to reproduce output variables solely from
solar wind inputs. Attempts to predict substorm onsets were less successfu
l. Although the average polar cap flux prior to onset is larger than normal
, the difference is not large enough to have significant predictive capabil
ity. Specifically, polar cap flux averaged 404 +/- 133 and 422 +/- 148 MWb
for the entire years of 1996 and 1997, respectively, while the polar cap fl
ux at the time of substorm onset averaged 455 +/- 143 MWb.