Speaker
Description
We present an analysis of the strongest geomagnetic storm of Solar Cycle 25 (SYM-H < −518 nT), known as the Mother’s Day Storm, which occurred between 10 and 15 May 2024.
The study is based on data from a stand-alone system for measuring geomagnetic field variations at Talos Dome (TLD), a remote site on the Antarctic plateau, about 300 km from TNB,the Italian geomagnetic observatory at Mario Zucchelli Station, operated by INGV. The isolated position of the Talos Dome geomagnetic automatic station ensures the absence of any magnetic disturbance produced by human activity.
This autonomous geomagnetic station was designed and assembled at the INGV laboratories in Rome to operate independently at extremely low Antarctic temperatures, and it was installed in December 2020.
The station operated successfully for four years, until late December 2024, achieving the goal of collecting the longest possible data series and continuing to function reliably even during the austral winters, when temperatures may reach −60 °C.
This geomagnetic field monitoring installation at Talos Dome represents a successful effort to complement standard observatory measurements with additional observation points, enabling a deeper investigation of remote, poorly monitored regions of our planet.
The TLD measurements represent a completely new and promising dataset from this remote site, offering the opportunity to investigate magnetospheric dynamics from a different perspective.
The position of Talos Dome is particularly interesting because, together with TNB and the New Zealand geomagnetic observatory at Scott Base (SBA, data accessible via the INTERMAGNET database), it forms a network along the 80°S geomagnetic parallel, which is valuable for studying the longitudinal propagation of variations triggered by external sources.In fact, SBA, TNB, and TLD are separated by approximately two hours in magnetic local time. Stations at this latitude lie within the polar cap and approach the dayside cusp around local magnetic noon. Furthermore, the availability of data from the Dome C observatory (DMC) at the Italian-French station at Concordia, which is located close to the geomagnetic pole, provides an additional opportunity for comparison.
In this work, we describe the characteristics of the instrument and the installation at Talos Dome and provide an overview of the available dataset.
We also present a dynamic spectral analysis of the TLD signals, along side simultaneous observations from TNB, SBA and DMC, as well as a dynamic coherence analysis of the components recorded at these stations during the Mother’s Day Storm.
These results provide new insights into magnetospheric dynamics and its interaction with the solar wind in the context of space weather.
This study was carried out in part within the Space It Up project funded by the Italian Space Agency, ASI, and the Ministry of University and Research, MUR, under contract n. 2024-5-E.0 - CUP n. I53D24000060005.
