WINDMI

WINDMI is a low-dimensional model of the energy transfer from the solar wind through the magnetosphere and into the ionosphere. The model uses the analogy of electric circuitry (capacitances, resistances, inductances) to describe with a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations the response of the magnetosphere-ionosphere system to solar wind driving. The electric driving voltage applied by the solar wind is described either by the Rectified (Reiff and Luhmann, 1986), Siscoe (Siscoe et al. 2002) or Newell (2007) coupling function (references in Spencer et al. 2009).

The model can be driven by ACE Real-Time or Level2 solar wind measurements over a few days and provides as outputs various magnetospheric and ionospheric parameters (region I and II currents, cross-polarcap voltages, ionospheric dissipation).

The major products of the model are the energy of the ring current (Dst index) and the AL index of geomagnetic activity.