Information about the project
The radiation environment at aviation altitudes is affected mainly by galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) although the sporadic solar cosmic radiation (SCR) events cannot be neglected. These rare but intensive solar energetic particle (SEP) events may lead to short-term enhanced radiation levels in the Earth’s atmosphere or even at the ground (Ground Level Enhancement – GLE). Nowcasting and forecasting of radiation effects on-board aircrafts are of great importance for airlines and the aviation industry from the point of view of radiation protection and for diminishing potential risks like loss of communication or navigation signals, or avionics’ errors.
Various tools already provide reliable forecasting of radiation doses due to GCR, while nowcasting attempts due to SEP events just start to emerge. Seibersdorf Laboratories have implemented forecasting of GCR and first nowcasting attempts of SEP events in its tool AVIDOS - a federated service provided by Seibersdorf Laboratories accessible at the ESA Space Weather portal http://swe.ssa.esa.int/web/guest/avidos-federated. The current approach for SEP events nowcast uses data from a single neutron monitor station. This approach has strong limitations, which results in only a broad range of radiation dose assessments. In addition, an isotropic incidence of solar energetic particles is assumed in this model, which usually is not the case, especially during the initial and the main phase of an SEP event. Forecasting of radiation effects due to SEPs is extremely challenging due to the complex characteristics of SEP events and their random, currently not predictable, occurrence.
During a literature study, we will explore the usability of data from selected neutron monitor stations from the worldwide network potentially together with data measured by detectors on satellites to overcome current SEP event nowcasting limitations. We aim at a proof-of- concept study, i.e. performing calculations of radiation exposure in the atmosphere during a selected GLE. Furthermore, we will identify potential bottlenecks for turning this approach into an automatic application working in real-time.
During an organized scientific workshop, we will discuss the needs for a future forecast of radiation effects in the atmosphere due to SEPs. We will describe the type of data, their potential sources, as well as models that would be needed for a reliable prediction of the radiation environment in the Earth’s atmosphere during GLEs. The first outcome of this project will improve SEP event nowcasting performance and prepare for its implementation. The second objective, by revealing lacking capabilities, could be a starting point for a roadmap for scientific efforts or space missions in order to provide models and data for future SEP forecasts.
