Simulations of Van Allen Probes Plasmaspheric Electron Density Observations

S. De Pascuale, V. K. Jordanova, J. Goldstein, C. A. Kletzing, W. S. Kurth, S. A. Thaller, J. R. Wygant

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

We simulate equatorial plasmaspheric electron densities using a physics-based model (Cold PLasma, CPL; used in the ring current-atmosphere interactions model) of the source and loss processes of refilling and erosion driven by empirical inputs. The performance of CPL is evaluated against in situ measurements by the Van Allen Probes (Radiation Belt Storm Probes) for two events: the 31 May to 5 June and 15 to 20 January 2013 geomagnetic storms observed in the premidnight and postmidnight magnetic local time (MLT) sectors, respectively. Overall, CPL reproduces the radial extent of the plasmasphere to within a mean absolute difference of |ΔLavg|= 0.5 ± 0.1 L. The model electric field responsible for E × B convection and the parameterization of geomagnetic conditions (under the Kp-index and solar wind properties) implemented by CPL did not account for localized enhancements in the duskward electric field during increased activity. Rather, it was found to be largely dependent on the measure of the quiet time background. This property indicates that the agreement between these simulations and observations does not account for the complete set of physical processes during extreme (strong or weak) geomagnetic conditions impacting the plasmasphere. Nevertheless, at the presented resolution of the model CPL does provide good agreement in reproducing Radiation Belt Storm Probes observations of plasmaspheric density and plasmapause location.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)9453-9475
Number of pages23
JournalJournal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
Volume123
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2018

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Parts of this work were supported by the NASA Van Allen Probes EMFISIS project under the Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University (APL, JHU) contract no.921647 for NASA Prime contract no.NAS5-01072 and APL, JHU contract no.131802 for NASA prime contract no.NNN06AA01C. This work was also supported by funding from the IGPPS Fellowship through the Los Alamos National Laboratory 2014 & 2015 Space Weather Summer School and the 2016 & 2017 NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship under sponsor no.NNX16AP01H. DMSP "effective" Kp-index data were provided by G. Wilson at the Air Force Research Lab from the CEDAR Madrigal Database (http://cedar.openmadrigal.org/list/) and OMNI solar wind data were provided by J.H. King & N. Papatashvilli at Adnet Systems from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on the Coordinated Data Analysis Web (CDAWeb, http://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp_public/). DMSP ion drift meter data is available from P. Doherty at the Institute for Scientific Research under the CEDAR Madrigal Database (http://cedar.openmadrigal.org/list/). RBSP EMFISIS and EFW data may be obtained from instrument team websites hosted by the University of Iowa (https://emfisis.physics.uiowa.edu/data/index) and the University of Minnesota (http://www.space.umn.edu/rbspefw-data/) as well as CDAWeb (http://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp_public/).

Funding Information:
This work was also supported by funding from the IGPPS Fellowship through the Los Alamos National Laboratory 2014 & 2015 Space Weather Summer School and the 2016 & 2017 NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship under sponsor no.NNX16AP01H.

Funding Information:
Parts of this work were supported by the NASA Van Allen Probes EMFISIS project under the Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University (APL, JHU) contract no.921647 for NASA Prime contract no.NAS5-01072 and APL, JHU contract no.131802 for NASA prime contract no.NNN06AA01C.

Publisher Copyright:
©2018. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.

Keywords

  • RBSP
  • Van Allen Probes
  • convection
  • observations
  • plasmasphere
  • simulation

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