On the difference between real-time and research simulations with CTIPe

Abstract
Understanding the thermosphere and ionosphere conditions is crucial for spacecraft operations and many applications using radio signal transmission (e.g. in communication and navigation). In this sense, physics based modelling plays an important role, since it can adequately reproduce the complex coupling mechanisms in the magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere (MIT) system. The accuracy of the physics based model results does not only depend on the appropriate implementation of the physical processes, but also on the quality of the input data (forcing). In this study, we analyze the impact of input data uncertainties on the model results. We use the Coupled Thermosphere Ionosphere Plasmasphere electrodynamics model (CTIPe), which requires satellite based solar wind, interplanetary field and hemispheric power data from ACE and TIROS/NOAA missions. To identify the impact of the forcing uncertainties, two model runs are compared against each other. The first run uses the input data that were available in real-time (operational) and the second run uses the best estimate obtained in post-processing (research or historical run).
Year of Publication
2019
Journal
Advances in Space Research
Volume
64
Number of Pages
2077-2087
DOI
10.1016/j.asr.2019.02.028
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