Comparisons of multispacecraft observations and full‐particle simulations are used to understand magnetotail changes during substorms and the related cross‐tail current disruptions/reductions. We first show that the electric field accompanying current disruptions can be measured in the tail lobe from the drift velocity of oxygen beams. A stormy period is studied here with a fleet of spacecraft including the four Cluster spacecraft and the Double Star spacecraft TC‐1 in the tail, ACE and Geotail respectively in the solar wind and magnetosheath, and five LANL geostationary satellites, thus allowing the determination of the direction of propagation of the substorm disturbances. Each substorm here corresponds to an energy‐loading period followed by a dipolarization of the magnetic field seen from 11 to 18 RE. Plasma sheet thinning inside 12 RE occurs during energy loading and is enhanced at the onset of strong dissipations of magnetic energy, which precede by several minutes particle injections at 6.6 RE. Dipolarizations coincide with an increase of the lobe electric field, up to several mV/m. This study shows that the onset of the magnetic energy conversion occurs at about ∼10–11 RE and that once initiated, the perturbation propagates both toward the Earth and toward the distant tail. Comparisons of the measurements with recently published 2D full particle simulations of the reconnection process by Oka et al. (2008) indicate a good agreement between data and simulated magnetic lobe signatures. This suggests that the lobe magnetic changes are the signature of a tailward retreating neutral line, with its associated current disruption/reduction.
