Time-varying magnetotail magnetic flux calculation: a test of the method

Abstract. We modified the Petrinec and Russell (1996) algorithm to allow the computation of time-varying magnetotail magnetic flux based on simultaneous spacecraft measurements in the magnetotail and near-Earth solar wind. In view of many assumptions made we tested the algorithm against MHD simulation in the artificial event, which provides the input from two artificial spacecraft to compute the magnetic flux F values with our algorithm; the latter are compared with flux values, obtained by direct integration in the tail cross-section. The comparison shows similar time variations of predicted and simulated fluxes as well as their good correlation (cc>0.9) for the input taken from the tail lobe, which somewhat degrades if using the "measurements" from the central plasma sheet. The regression relationship between the predicted and computed flux values is rather stable allowing one to correct the absolute value of predicted magnetic flux.

We conclude that this method is a perspective tool to monitor the tail magnetic flux which is one of the main global magnetotail parameters.