Excitation and decay of flows in the magnetosphere-ionosphere system due to magnetic reconnection at the dayside magnetospause and in the geomagnetic tail

The excitation and decay of flows in the magnetosphere-ionosphere system which are caused by magnetic reconnection at the dayside magnetopause and in the geomagnetic tail are applied. Following an outline of the theoretical framework recently introduced by Cowley and Lockwood, their ideas are applied to the discussion of the time dependent flows generated by both impulsive and quasicontinuous reconnection.