The particles of the ring current have a finite lifetime before being lost to Earth’s atmosphere. Two processes—charge exchange and wave-particle interactions—contribute to this loss. Charge exchange is a process wherein a cold atmospheric neutral particle interacts with a positive ion of the ring current and exchanges an electron. The ion is converted to an energetic neutral, which, since it is no longer guided by the main field, may be lost in the deeper atmosphere, exchange again with an ion farther from Earth, or be lost from the magnetosphere entirely. The previously neutral particle becomes charged in this process and is subsequently subject to drift in the main field, albeit with lower energy than the original ion. This process of charge exchange is dependent on the number of particles present in the ring current. As the number increases, so does the rate of decay due to charge exchange. For any given rate of injection into the ring current, the current grows until the rate of decay balances the rate of injection. At this point the ring current becomes stable and persists as long as steady injection continues.

In a typical magnetic storm the interval during which the IMF is tilted out of the ecliptic antiparallel to Earth’s main field is on the order of 8 to 16 hours. The lifetime of a particle against charge exchange is about the same. Accordingly, it is rare that equilibrium of the ring current ever develops. Instead, the IMF turns northward and the ring current gradually decays. In most cases this recovery phase of the magnetic storm lasts for two to three days before quiet conditions are reestablished.

A second process that contributes to the decay of the ring current is the cyclotron instability of particles gyrating in Earth’s field. In this process an electromagnetic wave with a frequency near that at which particles gyrate about the field interacts with the particles exchanging energy. If conditions are right, the wave gains energy at the expense of the particle and in the process scatters the particle, so that it tends to follow a field line more closely. A succession of such scatterings eventually produces a particle moving directly along a magnetic field line. The particle then travels all the way to the atmosphere and is lost from the ring current. The appropriate condition for this process occurs when the ring current possesses more particles near the equatorial plane than near the end of the field line. Magnetospheric convection produces this situation in the inner magnetosphere; thus, this process is an important loss mechanism contributing to the observed ring-current decay. In a typical ring current the waves produced by protons have a frequency between 0.2 and 5 hertz. Electrons produce waves of about 1,836 times higher frequency.

Growth phase

An isolated substorm begins when the IMF turns southward and dayside reconnection begins. For about an hour afterward, bands of quiet auroral arcs drift equatorward near midnight in the northern and southern auroral ovals. The eastward and westward electrojets, flowing from noon toward midnight along the ovals, gradually increase in strength and move equatorward along with the aurora. This quiescent phase is called the growth phase of the substorm.

The growth phase is terminated by a sudden brightening and activation of the most equatorward arc in each oval. This event is often termed the auroral breakup, and it signals the onset of the substorm expansion phase. Soon after onset, auroral activity expands to fill the entire sky above a particular ground observer. Rapid motion, development of vertical rays and folds, and the appearance of colour at the bottom of auroral forms are characteristic features of this phase. Detailed observations made from the ground and images from satellites reveal that the region of auroral disturbance expands poleward and westward. A surge of bright aurora, known as the westward traveling surge, propagates to the west and eventually decays into drifting bands that sometimes pass the dusk meridian. On the dawn side, patches of pulsating aurora and large omega-shaped bands drift eastward.

Accompanying the aurora are simultaneous changes in the magnetic disturbances. The most important of these is an enhancement of the westward electrojet in the region of the expanding aurora. As the surge travels westward, so too does the leading edge of the enhanced electrojet. On the ground the magnetic field suddenly decreases, sometimes by as much as 2,000 nanoteslas as the surge passes overhead. Behind the advancing fronts of the aurora, the particles responsible for the auroral light also increase the electrical conductivity of the ionosphere and cause the convection electrojets to increase in strength. The expansion phase of the substorm terminates after about 30 minutes, and the final phase begins.

The final phase of a substorm is called the recovery phase. During this phase the aurora and currents gradually drift back to their original equatorward locations as they simultaneously decrease in luminosity and strength. Provided that the IMF has turned northward in the intervening time, the recovery phase ends after approximately 90 minutes.

Often the IMF does not turn northward immediately; it may fluctuate between north and south. In such cases the auroral and magnetic disturbances become much more complex and are not easily characterized. Situations of this kind usually persist for a sufficient length of time, so that many particles are brought into the inner magnetosphere where they are energized and trapped and produce a magnetic storm. Nonetheless, many features of the isolated substorm can still be recognized.

The magnetospheric substorm also can be explained in terms of magnetic convection driven by magnetic reconnection. A substorm, however, is a manifestation of time-varying convection. In the reconnection model of substorms, transport of magnetic flux and particles never reaches equilibrium. During the growth phase of a substorm, magnetic flux is eroded from the dayside and added to the lobes of the magnetotail. The dayside magnetopause moves inward as a result of the flux lost, while the polar caps increase in size as a result of the flux gained, as illustrated in the figure. The additional flux in the near-tail requires an increase in the tail field and hence in the tail current, since the additional flux is contained in a volume of smaller cross section than was the initial quiet-time flux. Also, because the tangential drag on the tail has increased, the tail current moves earthward to increase the force that Earth exerts on the tail, thus balancing the additional force of the solar wind. Closed flux simultaneously begins returning to the dayside and emptying the nightside plasma sheet. Equatorward motion of the aurora during this phase is simply a manifestation of the increasing size of the tail lobes. Enhancements of the eastward and westward electrojets are a consequence of the increased rate of convection driven by the southward IMF.