Heights of electric currents near the auroral zone

Abstract

Intense magnetic disturbances lasting for an hour or more are frequently observed in the vicinity of the auroral zone. Birkeland 1 has named these disturbances “polar elmentary stormsrd” and ascribed them to electric currents produced by the streaming of electrified solar corpuscles through the Eartha's magnetic field. The writer 2 has suggested that they are due to electric currents resulting from dynamo‐action in the auroral zone, the atmosphere being heated there by impact of solar corpuscles. This was an extension of the theory proposed by Chapman 3 to account for the world‐wide characteristics of magnetic storms.