Radiation Belts St. Petersburg (RBSPb) Meeting:List of Interesting Storms and Events

Drew L. Turner and Mike Hartinger

Mini-GEM: Dec. 2010

RBSPb 2010• 18 researchers (incl. students), representing institutions from USA, Russia,

Japan, and EU, met in St. Petersburg, Russia in late July• Workshop website: http://www.i-mp.org/conference/i-mp_2010/• Workshop format, open-discussion talks covering:

– ULF waves– Whistler-mode chorus– EMIC waves– Effects of the plasmasphere– Observational studies– Data assimilation– Instrumentation and upcoming missions

• Tutorial talk by Mike Schulz on the limiting energy spectrum of a saturated radiation belt

• At the end of the workshop, there was a brainstorming session on collaborative projects…

Events List• Radiation belt events with interesting, clear, and/or intriguing

characteristics, e.g.:– Storm-time dynamics– Non-storm enhancements– Sudden dropout/loss events

• A database of these events could (or “should”?) be generated• Database should include details for each event:

– General information and data (i.e. fluxes, solar wind, etc.), – What has been studied previously, include any publications and their

conclusions– What is being studied currently– Recommendations for future study

• This should prove to be a useful reference tool for radiation belt researchers

Examples: BzV

P dyn

KpD

stAE

OMNI2

166 168 170 172 174 176June 1995:– 1 of 2 non/weak-storm

enhancement event– Exhibits a very sudden

enhancement of radiation belt electrons

– No publications on theseThanks to CDAWeb and LANL for online data access; also GPS data courtesy of R. Friedel, T. Cayton, and S. Bourdarie

BzV

P dyn

KpD

stAE

OMNI2

338 340 342 344 346 348

Examples:

Thanks to CDAWeb and LANL for online data access; also GPS data courtesy of R. Friedel, T. Cayton, and S. Bourdarie

December 2000:– 2nd non/weak-storm

enhancement event– Unlike 1st event, this one

exhibits a slower build up of energetic electrons

February 2009: – Small storm with typical main-phase

dropout and strong enhancement– Modeling analysis published in JGR

[Tu et al., 2010]

Examples:

– Data also available from 1st BARREL balloon test flight

– All this information (i.e. data, plots, references, and conclusions) for each event could be stored in one place!

Event Database - Goals

• Select several events that should be studied, are currently being studied, or have already been studied to improve our understanding of radiation belt dynamics

• Incorporate these events into a database that is accessible to the radiation belt research community

• Facilitate collaboration on these events through the database

• Goal today: feedback on potential events and the database; if favorable, structure and location of the database

Proposed Implementation of Database

Event List

Single Event

Topics list

Ongoing Research Previous Publications/short summary

Overview Plots (e.g. Kp) Discussion Board

Lead(s)

Links to data/figures

Summary

www.virbo.org/RBSPb

Discussion: “We think that a large dynamic pressure pulse caused a sudden, dramatic dropout in PSD during this interval”

Topics: Radial Diffusion, Sudden PSD dropouts, Chorus waves

Publications: None

Current Research: Yuri Shprits, reanalysis results

Select June 1991 event

Select Sudden PSD dropout topic

June 1991:– Example of sudden, catastrophic

dropout in phase space density– Reanalysis results show that drop

outs in the radiation belt fluxes occur when the pressure pulse hits the Earth’s magnetosphere

– The correlation between pressure pulses and dropouts suggests that the primary cause of PSD dropouts in the outer portion of the radiation belts is loss to the magnetopause or tail, followed by outward radial diffusion

Example:

Eventswww.virbo.org/RBSPb