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Solar cycle dependence of substorm occurrence and duration: Implications for onset

Magnetospheric substorms represent a major energy release process in Earth's magnetosphere. Their duration and intensity are coupled to solar wind input, but the precise way the solar wind energy is stored and then released is a matter of considerable debate. Part of the observational difficulty has been the gaps in the auroral electrojet index traditionally used to study substorm properties. In this study, we created a midlatitude positive bay (MPB) index to measure the strength of the substorm current wedge. Because this index is based on midlatitude magnetometer data that are available continuously over several decades, we can assemble a database of substorm onsets lasting 31 years (1982–2012). We confirmed that the MPB onsets have a good agreement (±2 min) with auroral onsets as determined by optical means on board the IMAGE mission and that the MPB signature of substorms is robust and independent of the stations' position relative to ionospheric currents. Using the MPB onset, expansion, and recovery as a proxy of the respective substorm quantities, we found that the solar cycle variation of substorm occurrence depends on solar wind conditions and has a most probable value of 80 min. In contrast, the durations of substorm expansion and recovery phases do not change with the solar cycle. This suggests that the frequency of energy unloading in the magnetosphere is controlled by solar wind conditions through dayside reconnection, but the unloading process related to flux pileup in the near‐Earth region is controlled by the magnetosphere and independent of external driving.