SH32A-02
The Missing Solar Irradiance Spectrum: 1 to 7 nm

Wednesday, 16 December 2015: 10:38
2011 (Moscone West)
Jan Josef Sojka1, Maggie Lewis1, Michael David1, Robert Walter Schunk1, Thomas N Woods2, Francis Gerard Eparvier3 and Harry P Warren4, (1)Utah State University, Logan, UT, United States, (2)Univ Colorado, Boulder, CO, United States, (3)University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, (4)Naval Research Lab DC, Washington, DC, United States
Abstract:
During large X-class flares the Earth’s upper atmospheric E-region responds immediately to solar photons in the 1 to 7 nm range. The response can change the E-region density by factors approaching 10, create large changes in conductivity, and plague HF communications. GOES-XRS provide 0.1 to 0.8 nm and a 0.05 to 0.4 nm integral channels; SOHO-SEM provided a 0 to 50 nm irradiance; TIMED and SORCE-XPS diode measurements also integrated down to 0.1 nm; and most recently SDO-EVE provided a 0.1 to 7 nm irradiance. For atmospheric response to solar flares the cadence is also crucial. Both GOES and SDO provided integral measurements at 10 seconds or better. Unfortunately these measurements have failed to capture the 1 to 7 nm spectral changes that occur during flares. It is these spectral changes that create the major impact since the ionization cross-section of the dominant atmospheric species, N2 and O2, both contain step function changes in the cross-sections.

Models of the solar irradiance over this critical wavelength regime have suffered from the need to model the spectral variability based on incomplete measurements. The most sophisticated empirical model FISM [Chamberlin et al., 2008] used 1 nm spectral binning and various implementations of the above integral measurements to describe the 1 to 7 nm irradiance. Since excellent solar observations exist at other wavelengths it is possible to construct an empirical model of the solar atmosphere and then use this model to infer the spectral distribution at wavelengths below 5 nm. This differential emission measure approach has been used successfully in other contexts [e.g., Warren, 2005, Chamberlin et al., 2009].

This paper contrasts the broadband versus spectrally resolved descriptions of the incoming irradiance that affects the upper atmospheric E-layer. The results provide a prescription of what wavelength resolution would be needed to adequately measure the incoming solar irradiance in the 1 to 7 nm range.

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