SM023-07
Impact of Radiation Belt Electron Precipitation on the Upper Atmosphere

Thursday, 10 December 2020: 10:54
Virtual
Kevin H Pham1, Kareem Sorathia2, Adam T. Michael3, Hanli Liu4, Wenbin Wang5, Dong Lin6, Shanshan Bao7, Sasha Ukhorskiy2 and Viacheslav G Merkin8, (1)National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, United States, (2)Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD, United States, (3)Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, United States, (4)National Center for Atmospheric Research, High Altitude Observatory, Boulder, CO, United States, (5)NCAR, HAO, Boulder, CO, United States, (6)Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, United States, (7)Rice University, Physics and Astronomy, Houston, TX, United States, (8)The Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, MD, United States
Recorded Presentation
Abstract:
Electron precipitation into the atmosphere significantly contributes to the dynamics there. The deposition altitude of electron precipitation is dependent upon the precipitating electron energy. While the role of electron precipitation on the atmosphere up to tens of keV has been extensively studied, the importance of higher energy electron precipitation up to the MeV range is relatively unknown. In this study, we use the current implementation of the Multiscale Atmosphere Geospace Environment (MAGE) model which couples the Thermosphere-Ionosphere Electrodynamic General Circulation Model (TIEGCM) of the T-I system, the Grid Agnostic MHD for Extended Research Applications (GAMERA) global MHD magnetosphere model, and the Rice Convection Model (RCM) of the ring current together to drive the Conservative Hamiltonian Integrator of Magnetospheric Particles (CHIMP) particle pushing code that includes wave-particle interaction to estimate the higher energy electron precipitations reaching a few MeVs for Nov. 21, 2016 radiation belt dropout event. The electron precipitation and convection from MAGE and CHIMP are then combined to drive WACCM-X. The impact of the energetic particle precipitation on the D-region chemistry and role in the upper atmosphere will be presented.
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