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Abstract. We investigate variations in the location and intensity of the auroral electrojets during magnetic storms and substorms using a numerical method for estimating the equivalent ionospheric currents based on data from meridian chains of magnetic observatories. Special attention was paid to the complex structure of the electrojets and their interrelationship with diffuse and discrete particle precipitation and field-aligned currents in the dusk sector. During magnetospheric substorms the eastward electrojet (EE) location in the evening sector changes with local time from cusp latitudes ( ∼77 • ) during early afternoon to latitudes of diffuse auroral precipitation ( ∼65 • ) equatorward of the auroral oval before midnight. During the main phase of an intense magnetic storm the eastward currents in the noon-early evening sector adjoin to the cusp at ∼65 • and in the pre-midnight sector are located at subauroral latitude ∼57 • . The westward electrojet (WE) is located along the auroral oval from evening through night to the morning sector and adjoins to the polar electrojet (PE) located at cusp latitudes in the dayside sector. The integrated values of the eastward (westward) equivalent ionospheric current during the intense substorm are ∼0.5 MA (∼1.5 MA), whereas they are 0.7 MA (3.0 MA) during the storm main phase maximum. The latitudes of auroral particle precipitation in the dusk sector are identical with those of both electrojets. The EE in the evening sector is accompanied by particle precipitation mainly from the Alfvén layer but also from the near-Earth part of the central plasma sheet. In the lower-latitude part of the EE the field-aligned currents (FACs) flow into the ionosphere (Region 2 FAC), and at its higher-latitude part the FACs flow Correspondence to: A. Prigancova (geofpria@savba.sk) out of the ionosphere (Region 1 FAC). During intense disturbances, in addition to the Region 2 FAC and the Region 1 FAC, a Region 3 FAC with the downward current was identified. This FAC is accompanied by diffuse electron precipitation from the plasma sheet boundary layer. Actually, the triple system of FAC is observed in the evening sector and, as a consequence, the WE and the EE overlap. The WE in the evening sector comprises only the high-latitude periphery of the plasma precipitation region and corresponds to the Hall current between the Region 1 FAC and Region 3 FAC. During the September 1998 magnetic storm, two velocity bursts (∼2-4 km/s) in the magnetospheric convection were observed at the latitudes of particle precipitation from the central plasma sheet and at subauroral latitudes near the ionospheric trough. These kind of bursts are known as subauroral polarization streams (SAPS). In the evening sector the Alfvén layer equatorial boundary for precipitating ions is located more equatorward than that for electrons. This may favour northward electric field generation between these boundaries and may cause high speed westward ions drift visualized as SAPS. Meanwhile, high speed ion drifts cover a wider range...

[1] A new self-consistent version of a time-dependent magnetospheric paraboloid model is presented and tested on the 24-27 September 1998 magnetic storm interval (minimum Dst = À207 nT). The model uses DMSP satellite data to identify the location of the inner boundary of the magnetotail current sheet and the magnetic flux in the lobes and their variations with time. These inputs plus upstream solar wind dynamic pressure and IMF B z values are used to iteratively model the Earth's field during the storm. Several interesting results with important consequences are obtained: (1) the model tail field strength at the Earth's surface (DT = À134 nT) is a significant fraction of the ring current value (DR = À167 nT); (2) the movement of the tail current sheet inward to L = 3.5-4.0 at storm maximum is consistent with geosynchronous magnetic field data; (3) at the Earth's surface the Chapman-Ferraro magnetopause current field (DCF = 117 nT) is almost equal at storm maximum to the value from the tail current, thus the fields from the two systems nearly cancel; (4) the magnetic flux from the polar cap in the course of the magnetic storm main phase approximately doubles in comparison with the magneto-quiet interval just before the storm onset; this fact shows that the driven processes prevail over dissipation processes throughout the storm main phase; (5) the large-scale internal currents in the magnetosphere (ring current, field-aligned currents, and magnetotail current) have significant influence on the shape and size of the magnetosphere; the location of the magnetopause subsolar point is different from that obtained by extrapolation of empirical results taken during high geomagnetic activity intervals and from magnetospheric models that do not include feedback from internal magnetospheric currents.