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Statistical Comparison of Magnetopause Distances and CPCP Estimation by Global MHD Models
  • Agnit Mukhopadhyay
Agnit Mukhopadhyay
University of Michigan Ann Arbor

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Abstract

Acquiring quantitative metrics-based analysis regarding the performance of most first-principle space physics modeling approaches is key in understanding the solar and space weather. As established by the successive the Geospace Environment Modeling Challenges, quantification of performance help set a precedent in understanding the science behind the various phenomena observed naturally in addition to elucidating the merits and demerits of a space weather prediction method. In this study, the performance of three magnetohydrodynamic models (SWMF/BATS-R-US, LFM and OpenGGCM) in estimating the Earth’s magnetopause location and the ionospheric cross polar cap potential (CPCP) have been studied. Using the Community Coordinated Modeling Center’s Run-on-Request system and extensive database on results of various magnetospheric scenarios run during a variety of solar weather patterns, the aforementioned model predictions have been compared with magnetopause standoff distance estimations obtained from six empirical models, and with cross polar cap potential estimations obtained from AMIE and SuperDARN. The events considered in this study contain a spectrum of possibilities – solar storms, substorms, constant solar wind events, which have been categorized using the Kp index as high, moderate and low magnitude solar events. Several of these storms have been well documented as part of the Geospace Environment Modeling (GEM) Challenges and other studies. The root-mean-square difference (RMS), prediction efficiency (PE) and maximum amplitude (Max Amp) metrics are used to quantify the model performances for the solar events considered. A separate metric called Wrong Prediction (WP) has also been used to study the models’ hit and miss rates with the empirical data. While almost all the cases considered for the magnetopause standoff distances have a satisfactory performance, there is huge deviation for the CPCP data both in the physics based models and the empirical data. The metric data is therefore valid for the magnetopause location comparisons, while not being that thorough for the CPCP comparative study.