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Fig. 4.5
Statistical field-aligned current (FAC) pattern obtained from magnetometer measure-
ments on board the Earth-orbiting satellites Ørsted and Magsat for summer conditions at the
southern polar area sorted for the same 8 clock-angle orientations as the convection potentials in
Fig.
4.3
according to the study of Papitashvili et al. (
2002
). These model patterns are parametrized
for an IMF magnitude value of 5 nT. The
central panel
shows the FAC distribution for a vanishing
IMF vector, the so-called zero-state magnetosphere without any reconnection processes with
the IMF, but persisting interaction with the solar wind streaming past the magnetopause. From
Geophysical Research Letters
by American Geophysical Union Copyright 2012 Reproduced with
permission of American Geophysical Union
in latitude and
5-15
ı
in longitude, but at high latitude, in particular for mesoscale
phenomena, other choices might be appropriate for a best-fit formulation of the
physical phenomena under study. Using the FAC density of Papitashvili et al. (
2002
)
as (time-varying) input values of Fig.
4.5
for the equinox conditions of our study
interval, we obtained the IMF-dependent electric field potential distributions shown
