Identification

Title

Comparative statistical study of characteristics of plasma in planar and non-planar ICME sheaths during solar cycles 23 and 24

Abstract

Planar magnetic structures (PMS) are often observed in sheath regions driven by interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) and in corotating interaction regions (CIRs). Here, we study plasma properties statistically within planar and non-planar ICME sheath regions using in situ data from the Advanced Composition Explore (ACE) spacecraft. The study includes 420 ICME-driven sheaths from 1998-2017. We found that 146 (similar to 35 per cent) ICME-driven sheaths are planar, whereas 274 (similar to 65 per cent) are non-planar. This study found that the average plasma temperature, density, speed, plasma beta, thermal pressure and magnetic pressure are higher in planar sheaths than in non-planar sheaths. This implies that high compression plays an essential role in the formation of PMS in sheath regions. Interestingly, our analysis reveals explicitly that the strength of the southward/northward magnetic field component is almost double in planar sheath regions compared with non-planar sheath regions. This suggests that planar sheaths are more geoeffective than non-planar sheaths.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d76113j4

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2020-04-22T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Copyright 2020 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-07-11T19:19:45.950933

Metadata language

eng; USA