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Global Development of the Supersubstorm of May 28, 2011

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Abstract

The paper gives an analysis of the isolated supersubstorm observed during the main phase of the moderate magnetic storm on May 28, 2011 (SYM/H ~ –95 nT), which was caused by the solar wind magnetic cloud. This supersubstorm peaked at around ~0850 UT (SML = ~–2600 nT). The study was based on data from the global SuperMAG and IMAGE magnetometer networks and satellite data from the AMPERE project. Like those in other supersubstorms, the ionospheric currents in this event were found to develop on a global scale: an intense and extended westward electrojet (with a maximum around midnight) was observed in the midnight, morning, and daytime sectors and an intense eastward electrojet was observed in the afternoon and evening sectors. The development of global currents was accompanied by intense positive bays. This was reflected by large values of the MPB index (~4000 nT2). It has been shown that, during the peak development of the supersubstorm, there was a significant increase in the eastward electrojet in the evening sector (~15–18 MLT), an additional affluent longitudinal electric current, and an additional ring current that appeared concurrently in this sector. These facts suggest the hypothesis about the development of an additional substorm current wedge that appeared on the evening side during the supersubstorm and closed on the eastward electrojet.

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6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are grateful to the creators of the OMNI database (http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov), the catalog of large-scale solar-wind types (ftp://ftp.iki.rssi.ru/pub/ omni/catalog), the SuperMAG database (http://supermag. jhuapl.edu/), IMAGE (http://space.fmi.fi/image/), and AMPERE (http://www.ampere.jhuapl.edu) for the permission to use these data in the study.

Funding

The work by I.V. Despirak, N.G. Kleimenova, A.A. Lyubchich, and P.V. Setsko was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project no. 20-55-18003Bolg_a; the work by R. Werner was supported by the National Science Foundation of Bulgaria, project no. KP-06-Russia/15); and the work by L.I. Gromova was conducted within the state task of the Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism and Radiowave Propagation, Russian Academy of Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Polar Geophysical Institute, Apatity, Murmansk oblast, Russia

    I. V. Despirak, A. A. Lyubchich & P. V. Setsko

  2. Shmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    N. G. Kleimenova

  3. Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere, and Radiowave Propagation, Russian Academy of Sciences, Troitsk, Moscow, Russia

    L. I. Gromova

  4. Space Research and Technology Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Stara Zagora, Bulgaria

    R. Werner

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  1. I. V. Despirak
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  2. N. G. Kleimenova
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  5. L. I. Gromova
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Correspondence to I. V. Despirak.

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Translated by V. Arutyunyan

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Despirak, I.V., Kleimenova, N.G., Lyubchich, A.A. et al. Global Development of the Supersubstorm of May 28, 2011. Geomagn. Aeron. 62, 199–208 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0016793222030069

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