Fractals and magnetic storm

Abstract. Fractal theory is applied in a quantitative analysis of geomagnetic storms. Fractal dimensions (D) of the attractor for storm data from the Beijing observatory (40.0°N, 116.2°E) using several time intervals are calculated. A maximum value of 1.4 has been obtained for a geomagnetic storm; on quite days the dimension is only slightly larger than 0.5. Data from two storms are analyzed here. Results show that a combination of both D and the magnetic index, k, can perhaps describe the degree of solar disturbance better than the single parameter k.