This paper describes the development of a system for simulation of the geomagnetically induced currents (GIC) produced in a power system. Magnetic field data or a specified electrojet current are used with an Earth conductivity model to calculate the electric fields at the Earth's surface. These electric field values are used as input to a power system model to give the geomagnetically induced currents throughout the network. Practical calculations can be made by superposition of results calculated separately for northward and eastward electric fields. Superposition can be used with magnetic data from a single observatory for uniform fields, or with data from two observatories assuming a linear variation of the magnetic fields between the two observatory locations. Combining these calculations provides an efficient method for simulating the geomagnetically induced currents produced during any disturbance for which geomagnetic data are available.

Telluric currents due to geomagnetic field variations have long been known to cause variations in pipe-to-soil potentials (PSP) on pipelines. These are increasingly being taken into account in the design of cathodic protection systems for new pipelines. Online services are available for modelling telluric currents but cannot handle all pipeline configurations. This paper describes the development of a new telluric simulator, based on a more versatile modeling technique that can include more details of a pipeline such as branches and other features. This can show the pipe-to-soil potentials produced by specified telluric electric fields. Descriptions are also provided for features of the telluric simulator that allow modeling of the pipeline response using electric fields calculated for past geomagnetic disturbances. These features allow pipeline designs to be checked under realistic conditions and modifications to the design to be tested.

The Electric Field Instrument (EFI) onboard the Swarm satellites will make continuous measurements of the three-dimensional ion drift in the topside F region providing a convenient data set for mapping the ionospheric convection pattern. In this study, a spherical cap harmonic analysis (SCHA) algorithm has been developed to generate maps of the high-latitude convection pattern in the narrow region surrounding the footprints of the Swarm satellite tracks where the solution will be constrained by measurements. This technique has been tested using input velocity values generated from a statistical model at simulated coordinates of Swarm EFI measurements. To obtain a global context from the Swarm ion drift measurements, the Swarm data set is merged with values of the E × B plasma drift determined using a statistical model at typical locations of measurements for the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) radars in the northern hemisphere. It is shown that the addition of Swarm ion drifts to a SuperDARN data set increased the proportion of the calculated convection pattern that is constrained by measurement, by a relative increase of as much as 12% for a period of good SuperDARN coverage and 30% for a period of poor SuperDARN coverage. For a data set comprising two years of past SuperDARN operation and 4 years of future satellite operation, it is shown that a distribution of the relative increase peaks at 12.5%. The magnitude of the improvement depends on the size of the SuperDARN data set, the number of satellites contributing to the Swarm data set, and the extent of the overlap between instruments. Contributions from a Swarm data set also allows for the determination of convection features and properties, such as the location of convection vortices or the value of the cross polar cap potential, that could not be calculated by SuperDARN data alone due to a limited data set.