Home » Camporeale et al.

On the propagation of uncertainties in radiation belt simulations

Camporeale E., Y. Shprits, M. Chandorkar, A. Drozdov, S. Wing, (2016), On the propagation of uncertainties in radiation belt simulations, Space Weather, 14, 982-992, doi:10.1002/2016SW001494

Abstract

Abstract We present the first study of the uncertainties associated with radiation belt simulations, performed in the standard quasi-linear diffusion framework. In particular, we estimate how uncertainties of some input parameters propagate through the nonlinear simulation, producing a distribution of outputs that can be quite broad. Here we restrict our focus on two-dimensional simulations (in energy and pitch angle space) of parallel-propagating chorus waves only, and we study as stochastic input parameters the geomagnetic index Kp (that characterizes the time dependency of an idealized storm), the latitudinal extent of waves, and the average electron density. We employ a collocation method, thus performing an ensemble of simulations. The results of this work point to the necessity of shifting to a probabilistic interpretation of radiation belt simulation results and suggest that an accurate specification of a time-dependent density model is crucial for modeling the radiation environment.

Authors (sorted by name)

Drozdov Shprits

Journal / Conference

Space Weather

Acknowledgments

All the simulation data used in this paper can be requested from the corresponding author. Simon Wing acknowledges support from NSF grant AGS‐1058456 and NASA grants (NNX13AE12G, NNX15AJ01G, and NNX16AC39G).

Grants

AGS‐1058456 NNX13AE12G NNX15AJ01G NNX16AC39G

Bibtex

@article{doi:10.1002/2016SW001494,
author = {Camporeale, Enrico and Shprits, Yuri and Chandorkar, Mandar and Drozdov, Alexander and Wing, Simon},
title = {On the propagation of uncertainties in radiation belt simulations},
year={2016},
journal = {Space Weather},
volume = {14},
number = {11},
pages = {982-992},
keywords = {radiation belt, uncertainty quantification, importance sampling},
doi = {10.1002/2016SW001494},
url = {https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2016SW001494},
eprint = {https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/2016SW001494},
abstract = {Abstract We present the first study of the uncertainties associated with radiation belt simulations, performed in the standard quasi-linear diffusion framework. In particular, we estimate how uncertainties of some input parameters propagate through the nonlinear simulation, producing a distribution of outputs that can be quite broad. Here we restrict our focus on two-dimensional simulations (in energy and pitch angle space) of parallel-propagating chorus waves only, and we study as stochastic input parameters the geomagnetic index Kp (that characterizes the time dependency of an idealized storm), the latitudinal extent of waves, and the average electron density. We employ a collocation method, thus performing an ensemble of simulations. The results of this work point to the necessity of shifting to a probabilistic interpretation of radiation belt simulation results and suggest that an accurate specification of a time-dependent density model is crucial for modeling the radiation environment.}
}