SA23E-06
Driving Plasmaspheric Electron Density Simulations During Geomagnetic Storms
Tuesday, 15 December 2015: 14:55
2016 (Moscone West)
Sebastian De Pascuale1, Craig Kletzing1, Vania Jordanova2, Jerry Goldstein3, John R Wygant4 and Scott A Thaller4, (1)University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, United States, (2)Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, United States, (3)Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, United States, (4)University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, United States
Abstract:
We test global convection electric field models driving plasmaspheric electron density simulations (RAM-CPL) during geomagnetic storms with in situ measurements provided by the Van Allen Probes (RBSP). RAM-CPL is the cold plasma component of the ring-current atmosphere interactions suite (RAM-SCB) and describes the evolution of plasma density in the magnetic equatorial plane near Earth. Geomagnetic events observed by the RBSP satellites in different magnetic local time (MLT) sectors enable a comparison of local asymmetries in the input electric field and output densities of these simulations. Using a fluid MHD approach, RAM-CPL reproduces core plasmaspheric densities (L<4) to less than 1 order of magnitude difference. Approximately 80% of plasmapause crossings, defined by a low-density threshold, are reproduced to within a mean radial difference of 0.6 L. RAM-CPL, in conjunction with a best-fit driver, can be used in other studies as an asset to predict density conditions in locations distant from RBSP orbits of interest.
