On the Relationship Between Transit Time of ICMEs and Strength of the Initiated Geomagnetic Storms

Abstract

More than 140 isolated non-recurrent geomagnetic storms (GMSs) of various intensities from extreme to weak are considered, which are reliably identified with solar eruptive sources (coronal mass ejections, CMEs). The analysis aims to obtain a possibly complete picture of the relationship between the transit time of propagation of CMEs and interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) from the Sun to the Earth (more precisely, the time interval dtp from the moment of an eruption until the peak of the corresponding GMS) and the maximum intensity of this GMS, as measured by the disturbance storm time geomagnetic index Dst. Two groups of events are singled out: one includes GMSs, the source of which was an eruption from an active region (AR events), the other GMSs caused by filament eruptions from quiescent areas of the Sun located outside ARs (QS events). The distribution of the large number of the analyzed events on a dtp - Dst plane confirms and substantially clarifies the known regularities. The AR events are characterized by a shorter transit time (dtp ~ 1-4 days) and much stronger GMSs (Dst up to -600 nT mainly) in comparison with the QS events (dtp ~ 3-5 days, Dst > -200 nT). For events of both groups, the shorter transit time of CMEs/ICMEs, the more intense GMSs; in particular, for AR events when dtp declines from 4 to 1 day, Dst decreases on average from -100 to -470 nT and can reach -900 nT. From the point of view of the nature of GMSs and their sources on the Sun, the obtained results mean that both the speed of CMEs/ICMEs and the strength of the magnetic field transferred by them are largely determined by the parameters of the corresponding eruptions, in particular, by the eruptive magnetic flux and the released energy.

13 pages, 1 figure, accepted

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• The Extreme Space Weather Event in February/March 1941
• Candidate Auroral Observations during the Major Solar-Terrestrial Storm in May 1680: Implication for Space Weather Events during the Maunder Minimum