About Magnetospheric Field Models at SPDF

The Earth's real magnetic field is a sum of several contributions including the main (core) field, the crustal (anomaly) field, and the external source (magnetospheric) fields. The core contribution dominates the field from the Earth's surface up to about four Earth radii.
Beyond four Earth radii, the Earth's magnetic field is increasingly affected by the solar wind interaction with the earth's magnetosphere. The distortions can be described by several external source fields caused by magnetospheric current systems. One can identify three main current systems in the undisturbed outer magnetosphere:

  1. a current system on the magnetospheric boundary (magnetopause)
  2. a current system in the neutral sheet of the geomagnetic tail (the surface that separates two lobes of the tail)
  3. a current system around the Earth (ring current) flowing in the equatorial (minimum B) surface
During geomagnetic storms and substorms substantial changes occur in these systems, in addition to the appearance of field-aligned currents flowing out of and into the ionosphere. The software packages listed in this category include the coefficients and computer programs to calculate the external as well as internal contributions to the geomagnetic field.
This section lists several computer programs related to magnetospheric models:
* Go to the Geomagnetic Field Models index
* Go to the Space Physics Models page
If you have questions/comments about the various models, contact:Dr. Dieter K. Bilitza. If you have any questions/comments about Web access to run models, contact: Dr. Natalia Papitashvili, Mail Code 612.4, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771

NASA Official: Dr. Robert McGuire, Head of the Space Physics Data Facility