Comment on "Tail reconnection triggering substorm onset".
Angelopoulos et al. (Research Articles, 15 August 2008, p. 931) reported that magnetic reconnection in Earth's magnetotail triggered the onset of a magnetospheric substorm. We provide evidence that (i) near-Earth current disruption, occurring before the conventional tail reconnection signatures, triggered the onset; (ii) the observed auroral intensification and tail reconnection are not causally linked; and (iii) the onset they identified is a continuation of earlier substorm activities.
Lui
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Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD 20723-6099, USA. Tony.Lui@jhuapl.edu