Directly Driven and Unloading Components of Magnetospheric Substorms

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9311474 Akasofu Substorm studies would significant by advance if we could identify the directly driven component and the unloading component and how they vary as a function of time during a substorm. Unfortunately, the present accuracy of substorm and storm indices, such as AE, Dst and Ut, is not sufficient for such proposes; in particular in advancing a study of the relationship between the energy dissipated in the magnetosphere with solar wind and IMF parameters, such as V, Bz, , etc. It is proposed to examine: (i) whether "void regions" in DMSP particle data can be regarded as a "working definition" of open field line regions in the polar cap and (ii) if so, changes of the size of the void region during many substorms could indicate changes of the open flux, on the basis of simultaneous DMSP electron data together with the IMF Bz, AE, Dst, , etc. If the "working definition" of the open field line region could be confirmed, the size of the open field line region is a relatively simple geometrical quantity, but yet a measure of the flux of the open field lines and of magnetic energy in the tail lobe. A comparison of the flux with IMF and magnetospheric parameters is expected to provide important insights into substorm processes. ***