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Large-Scale Characteristics of Field-Aligned Currents Determined from the Triad Magnetometer Experiment

  • Conference paper
Dynamical and Chemical Coupling Between the Neutral and Ionized Atmosphere

Part of the book series: NATO Advanced Study Institutes Series ((ASIC,volume 35))

Abstract

Following earlier suggestions of Edmund Halley and Anders Celsius for the “magnetic behavior” of auroral phenomena, Kristian Birkeland discovered in his polar expeditions of 1902–3 that large-scale currents were associated with the aurora. He was also the first to suggest that these currents originated far from the earth and that they flowed into and away from the polar atmosphere along the geomagnetic field lines. The existence of such field-aligned currents was widely disputed because it was not possible to unambiguously distinguish between current systems that are field aligned (Birkeland, 1908) and those which are completely ionospheric (Vestine and Chapman, 1938) only from a study of surface magnetic field measurements. Furthermore, recent theoretical calculations by Fukushima (19693, 1976) predict that the effects of field-aligned currents may be impossible to detect with ground-based magnetometers for certain models of these current systems.

This work supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Physics Laboratory, The Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Maryland, 20810, USA

    T. A. Potemra

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  1. T. A. Potemra
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, Kjeller, Norway

    B. Grandal

  2. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    J. A. Holtet

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© 1977 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland

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Potemra, T.A. (1977). Large-Scale Characteristics of Field-Aligned Currents Determined from the Triad Magnetometer Experiment. In: Grandal, B., Holtet, J.A. (eds) Dynamical and Chemical Coupling Between the Neutral and Ionized Atmosphere. NATO Advanced Study Institutes Series, vol 35. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1262-1_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1262-1_27

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-1264-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-010-1262-1

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