nerc.ac.uk

Why Do Sudden Commencements Sometimes Generate Disproportionate Geomagnetically Induced Currents?

Smith, A.W. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7321-4331; Rodger, C.J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6770-2707; Pratscher, K.M.; Mac Manus, D.H. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1175-2251; Rae, I.J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2637-4786; Ratliff, D.; Clilverd, M.A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7388-1529; Lawrence, E.; Beggan, C.D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2298-0578; Richardson, G.S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9504-4457; Fogg, A.R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1139-5920; Oliveira, D.M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2078-7229; Hübert, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0526-5609; Petersen, T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8409-9500; Dalzell, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3891-6765. 2025 Why Do Sudden Commencements Sometimes Generate Disproportionate Geomagnetically Induced Currents? Space Weather, 23 (10), e2025SW004533. 27, pp. 10.1029/2025SW004533

Before downloading, please read NORA policies.
[thumbnail of Open Access]
Preview
Text (Open Access)
© 2025. The Author(s).
Space Weather - 2025 - Smith - Why Do Sudden Commencements Sometimes Generate Disproportionate Geomagnetically Induced.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

Download (4MB) | Preview

Abstract/Summary

Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GICs) in grounded, conducting infrastructure (e.g., power networks) represent an important space weather hazard. GICs are driven by the changing magnetic field at the Earth's surface. Due to a sparsity of GIC measurements, the rate of change of the horizontal geomagnetic field (Hʹ) is often used as a proxy. We focus on one cause of large GICs: Sudden Commencements (SCs) caused by an increase in solar wind dynamic pressure. Despite appearing homogeneous in 1‐min cadence magnetic field data, a systematic variation has been observed in the correlation with the resulting GIC, depending on the magnetic local time. We investigate two questions: (a) do the data capture SC morphology, and (b) are some SCs intrinsically linked to larger GICs? We find that 1‐min magnetic field measurements underestimate the maximum Hʹ, with systematic local time variation. We introduce an analytical model that describes the key components of an SC, the use of which strengthens the correlation between maximum Hʹ and GIC during SCs (r2 = 0.93). We conduct synthetic experiments with our analytical SC model and the GIC and geoelectric field models of Southern New Zealand and the United Kingdom, respectively. We find that the modeled GIC and geoelectric field linearly scale with the “size” of the SC, and non‐linearly with the “speed” of the magnetic change. Rotating the magnetic signature shifts the geoelectric field and GICs across the network. Forecasting the model parameters would enable robust forecasting of SC‐related GICs.

Item Type: Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.1029/2025SW004533
ISSN: 1542-7390
Additional Keywords: GICs, sudden commencements, MT modeling, analytical modeling, synthetic tests
Date made live: 29 Sep 2025 08:44 +0 (UTC)
URI: https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/540303

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Document Downloads

Downloads for past 30 days

Downloads per month over past year

More statistics for this item...