An Alternative Approach to Explaining Magnetospheric Processes

Abstract

This paper gives a brief outline of the progression from the first substorm model developed in [Ponomarev, 1985; Sedykh, Ponomarev, 2002] based on C.F. Kennel's ideas, to the present views about the mechanism by which solar wind kinetic energy is converted to electromagnetic energy at the Bow Shock and by which this energy is transferred to the magnetosphere in the form of current; about the transformation of the energy of this current to gas kinetic energy of convecting plasma tubes, and, finally, the back transformation of gas kinetic energy to electromagnetic energy in secondary magnetospheric MHD generators. The questions of the formation of the magnetospheric convection system, the nature of substorm break-up, and of the matching of currents in the magnetosphere-ionosphere system are discussed.