Comment on “Modeling Extreme “Carrington-Type” Space Weather Events Using Three-Dimensional Global MHD Simulations” by C. M. Ngwira, A. Pulkkinen, M. M. Kuznetsova, and A. Glocer”

Bruce T Tsurutani (1) , Gurbax Lakhina (2) , Ezequiel Echer (3) , Rajkumar Hajra (4) , Chinmaya Nayak (5) , Anthony Mannucci (1) , Xing Meng (1)

1 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
2 IIG - Indian Institute of Geomagnetism [Navi Mumbai, India]
3 INPE - Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais
4 LPC2E - Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace
5 George Mason University [Fairfax]

An alternative scenario to the Ngwira et al. (2014, https://doi-org.insu.bib.cnrs.fr/10.1002/2013JA019661) high sheath densities is proposed for modeling the Carrington magnetic storm. Typical slow solar wind densities (~5 cm−3) and lower interplanetary magnetic cloud magnetic field intensities (~90 nT) can be used to explain the observed initial and main phase storm features. A second point is that the fast storm recovery may be explained by ring current losses due to electromagnetic ion cyclotron wave scattering.

Domains: Geophysics [physics.geo-ph]; Space Physics [physics.space-ph]

Bruce T Tsurutani, Gurbax Lakhina, Ezequiel Echer, Rajkumar Hajra, Chinmaya Nayak, et al.. Comment on “Modeling Extreme “Carrington-Type” Space Weather Events Using Three-Dimensional Global MHD Simulations” by C. M. Ngwira, A. Pulkkinen, M. M. Kuznetsova, and A. Glocer”. Journal of Geophysical Research Space Physics, 2018, 123 (2), pp.1388 - 1392. ⟨10.1002/2017JA024779⟩. ⟨insu-01897911⟩