Contributions to the ring current energy during geomagnetic storms

The purpose of this research was to study the complexity, of the energization of the ring current during a geomagnetic storm, produced during southern Bz(IMF) by the injection of plasma sheet ions, accelerated by enhanced convective electric fields. This model assumes that the plasma sheet is continuously populated by H+ from the sun and the ionosphere, and sporadically by ionospheric O+, making the ring current a coupled system whose energy can hardly, be expressed analytically. When Bz(IMF) turns north, the ring current becomes uncoupled, and the energy decays exponentially if the storm is weak, or can be expressed as a combination of exponentials during strong storms representing the quick decay of O+ and the slower decay of H+, as has been shown.