Atmospheric Ionizing Radiation from Galactic and Solar Cosmic Rays

Mertens, Christopher J.; Kress, Brian; Wiltberger, M. J.; Tobiska, W. Kent; Grajewski, Barbara; Xu, Xiaojing

doi:10.5772/32664

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 94 publications

(104 reference statements)

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“…Included in this shutdown was the computer system that runs the Nowcast of Atmospheric Ionizing Radiation System (NAIRAS: http://sol.spacenvironment.net/~nairas/index. html) [Mertens et al, 2009[Mertens et al, , 2010[Mertens et al, , 2012[Mertens et al, , 2013 at NASA's Langley Research Center (LaRC). This system provides real-time data driven climatology of the aviation radiation environment as shown in Figure 1, which is the last report before the shutdown.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

U.S. Government shutdown degrades aviation radiation monitoring during solar radiation storm

et al. 2014

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The U.S. Government shutdown from 1 to 17 October 2013 significantly affected U.S. and global aviation radiation monitoring. The closure occurred just as a S2 radiation storm was in progress with an average dose rate of 20 μSv h -1. We estimate that during the radiation event period, one-half million passengers were flying in the affected zone and, of this population, four would have received sufficient dose to contract fatal cancer in their lifetimes. The radiation environment can be treated like any other risk-prone weather event, e.g., rain, snow, icing, clear air turbulence, convective weather, or volcanic ash, and should be made available to flight crews in a timely way across the entire air traffic management system. The shutdown highlighted the need for active operational monitoring of the global radiation environment. Aviation radiation risk mitigation steps are simple and straightforward, i.e., fly at a lower altitude and/or use a more equatorward route. Public tools and media methods are also needed from the space weather scientific and operational communities to provide this information in a timely and accessible manner to the flying public.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

U.S. Government shutdown degrades aviation radiation monitoring during solar radiation storm

et al. 2014

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Dynamic SEP event probability forecasts

Kahler¹,

Ling

2015

Space Weather

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The forecasting of solar energetic particle (SEP) event probabilities at Earth has been based primarily on the estimates of magnetic free energy in active regions and on the observations of peak fluxes and fluences of large (≥ M2) solar X-ray flares. These forecasts are typically issued for the next 24 h or with no definite expiration time, which can be deficient for time-critical operations when no SEP event appears following a large X-ray flare. It is therefore important to decrease the event probability forecast with time as a SEP event fails to appear. We use the NOAA listing of major (≥10 pfu) SEP events from 1976 to 2014 to plot the delay times from X-ray peaks to SEP threshold onsets as a function of solar source longitude. An algorithm is derived to decrease the SEP event probabilities with time when no event is observed to reach the 10 pfu threshold. In addition, we use known SEP event size distributions to modify probability forecasts when SEP intensity increases occur below the 10 pfu event threshold. An algorithm to provide a dynamic SEP event forecast, Pd, for both situations of SEP intensities following a large flare is derived.

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