Seasonal dependence of the Earth's radiation belt – new insights

Hajra, Rajkumar

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-39-181-2021

Articles | Volume 39, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-39-181-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-39-181-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 39, issue 1

ANGEO Communicates

|

24 Feb 2021

ANGEO Communicates |

| 24 Feb 2021

Seasonal dependence of the Earth's radiation belt – new insights

Rajkumar Hajra

Data sets

CDAWeb Selector Error NASA https:// cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eval1.cgi

Paths to Magnetic field, Plasma, Energetic particle data relevant to heliospheric studies and resident at Goddard’s Space Physics Data Facility NASA https://omniweb.gsfc.nasa. gov/

Short summary

Geomagnetic activity is known to exhibit semi-annual variation with larger occurrences during equinoxes. A similar seasonal feature was reported for relativistic (∼ MeV) electrons throughout the entire outer zone radiation belt. Present work, for the first time reveals that electron fluxes increase with an ∼ 6-month periodicity in a limited L-shell only with large dependence in solar activity cycle. In addition, flux enhancements are not essentially equinoctial.