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Causality and Information Transfer Between the Solar Wind and the Magnetosphere-Ionosphere System.
Pouya Manshour1, Georgios Balasis2, Giuseppe Consolini3
1Department of Complex Systems, Institute of Computer Science of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Pod Vodárenskou věží 2, 182 07 Prague 8, Czech Republic.
Entropy (Basel, Switzerland)
|April 3, 2021
Summary
Solar wind conditions causally influence Earth's magnetosphere, specifically impacting the auroral electrojet (AE) index and mid-latitude geomagnetic disturbances (SYM-H). No direct causal link was found between AE and SYM-H indices or between substorms and storms.
Area of Science:
- Space Physics
- Geophysics
- Information Theory
Background:
- The Earth's magnetosphere-ionosphere system is influenced by solar activity and interplanetary medium conditions.
- Understanding these interactions is crucial for space weather prediction and space systems protection.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate causal relationships and information transfer between solar wind parameters and the Earth's magnetosphere-ionosphere system.
- To quantify the influence of specific interplanetary magnetic field components on geomagnetic indices.
Main Methods:
- Utilized an information-theoretic approach to detect causality and information transfer.
- Applied causality measures to analyze solar wind data and geomagnetic indices (AE, SYM-H).
- Investigated time-delayed influences and conditioned causality.
Main Results:
- Detected causal information transfer from solar wind parameters to geomagnetic indices.
- Identified the interplanetary magnetic field's vertical component (Bz) influencing the AE index (10 min delay) and SYM-H index (30 min delay).
- Found no direct causal link between AE and SYM-H, or between magnetospheric substorms and magnetic storms.
Conclusions:
- Solar wind conditions exert a causal influence on geomagnetic indices through linear, time-delayed information transfer.
- The magnetosphere-ionosphere system's response to solar wind is characterized by specific time delays for different geomagnetic phenomena.
- The study highlights the limitations of detecting direct causal links between certain magnetospheric processes using these methods.
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