Ionospheric signatures during a magnetospheric flux rope event

Abstract. On 13 August 2002, during a substorm, Cluster encountered two earthward moving flux ropes (FR) in the central magnetotail. The first FR was observed during the expansion phase of the substorm, and the second FR during the recovery phase. In the conjugate ionospheric region in Northern Fennoscandia, the ionospheric equivalent currents were observed by the MIRACLE network and the auroral evolution was monitored by the Wideband Imaging Camera (WIC) on-board the IMAGE satellite. Extending the study of Amm et al. (2006), we examine and compare the possible ionospheric signatures associated with the two FRs. Amm et al. studied the first event in detail and found that the ionospheric footprint of Cluster coincided with a region of downward field-aligned current. They suggested that this region of downward current, together with a trailing region of upward current further southwestward, might correspond to the ends of the FR. Unlike during the first FR, however, we do not see any clear ionospheric features associated with the second one. In the GSM xy-plane, the first flux rope axis was tilted with respect to the y-direction by 29°, while the second flux rope axis was almost aligned in the y-direction, with an angle of 4° only. It is possible that due to the length and orientation of the second FR, any ionospheric signatures were simply mapped outside the region covered by the ground-based instruments. We suggest that the ground signatures of a FR depend on the orientation and the length of the structure.