Exploring the inertial effects of fast moving bubbles using the two-way coupled OpenGGCM and the Rice Convection Model

During geomagnetic active times, depleted flux tubes (bubbles) that have a lower entropy parameter PV5/3 than their surroundings are believed to be injected into the inner magnetosphere [e.g. Wolf et al., 2009; Zhang e. al., 2009] and play a crucial role in Ring Current injection. Accurately representing the dynamics of these bubbles is important to understanding plasma transport from tail to inner magnetosphere. In previous bubble studies using the Rice Convection Model (RCM), the inertial effect resulting from the fast flows was not well-represented. In this study, we report initial results using the two-way coupled OpenGGCM/RCM where inertial effects in the RCM are modeled. This new approach uses a direct integration method to compute the Birkeland currents from the MHD code, rather than the Vasyliunas equation, and the nudging procedure used to update the OpenGGCM from the RCM has been modified to enforce conservation of entropy in each flux tube. The results from this new code will be compared to runs using the coupled code that neglects inertial effects in the RCM calculation.