The PC index: review of methods

Abstract. The Polar Cap (PC) index is a controversial topic within the IAGA scientific community. Since 1997 discussions of the validity of the index to be endorsed as an official IAGA index have ensued. There is no doubt as to the scientific merit of the index which is not discussed here. What is in doubt is the methodology of the derivation of the index by different groups. The Polar Cap index (PC: PCN, northern; PCS, southern) described in Troshichev et al. (2006) and Stauning et al. (2006), both termed the "unified PC index", and the PCN index routinely derived at DMI are inspected using only available published literature. They are found to contain different derivation procedures, thus are not unified. The descriptions of the derivation procedures are found to not be adequate to independently derive the PC indices.