92nd American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting (January 22-26, 2012)

Monday, 23 January 2012
Empirical Forecasting Models of Global Electron Precipitations in Auroral Oval
Hall E (New Orleans Convention Center )
Yongliang Zhang, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD; and L. J. Paxton and H. Kil

Energetic (hundreds eV to tens keV) electron precipitation in the auroral oval plays an important role in space weather forecast. They not only create additional ionization in the polar ionosphere, but also enhance the heating in the polar thermosphere. Disturbances in the high latitude ionosphere and thermosphere can reach the equatorial regions within a few hours via horizontal and vertical transport. Based on TIMED/GUVI data, we developed a Kp-dependent model of mean energy and energy flux of the precipitating electrons. This model, covering the entire Kp range (0-9), is benefited from partial global coverage of GUVI aurora images and time coverage from solar maximum to solar minimum. This model can be used to forecast auroral particles based on predicted Kp. A solar wind and IMF dependent model is under development. We will also discuss some preliminary results of this new model.

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