A statistical study of magnetic field magnitude changes during substorms in the near earth tail

Using AMPTE/CCE data taken in 1985 and 1986 when the CCE apogee (8.8 earth radii) was within 4.5 hours of midnight, 167 injection events in the near-earth magnetotail have been cataloged. These events are exactly or nearly dispersionless on a 72-sec time scale from 25 keV to 285 keV. The changes in the field magnitude are found to be consistent with the expected effects of the diversion/disruption of the cross-tail current during a substorm, and the latitudinal position of the current sheet is highly variable within the orbit of CCE. The local time variation of the magnetic-field changes implies that the substorm current wedge is composed of longitudinally broad Birkeland currents.