A Radiation Belt Forecasting Model

Dr. Yihua Zheng
USRA, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

In this talk, a brief summary of the existing radiation belt models will be given. The focus of the talk is the radiation belt forecasting model having been developed by Fok and coworkers at the Goddard Space Flight Center. The core of this model is a kinetic model, which solves the convection-diffusion equation of plasma distributions in the 10 keV to MeV energy range. This forecasting model is solely driven by the solar wind and IMF conditions. We will present the model logic, the model validation (by comparing measured particle fluxes during several magnetic storms with model calculations), and the motivation and our current effort of incorporating wave-particle interactions into the model. Finally future development of this forecasting model will be discussed.