Magnetospheric magnetic field modeling pages moved to NSSDC

By Joe King and Kolya Tsygananko

Over the years, NSSDC has provided access to a rich array of empirical geophysical models at http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/space/model/models_home.html .  Several models are user-executable on NSSDC's computers.

The most popular external-source magnetospheric magnetic field models of recent years have been those developed by Nikolai Tsyganenko, originally of St. Petersburg University (Russia) and for many years now at Goddard Space Flight Center.  For a long time, NSSDC's model web pages provided a link to the Tsyganenko models and related material on a computer associated with the ISTP program.

With the termination of the ISTP program as such, and uncertainties about the related computers, Tsygananko suggested that NSSDC should host his models and related material directly on an NSSDC machine.  Recognizing the importance of continuing availability of the models to the space physics community, NSSDC was pleased to comply.

These pages are now available at

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/space/model/magnetos/data-based/modeling.html.

The content of these pages is quite tutorial in nature, helping even non-experts understand via words and dynamic graphics the changing interaction between the solar wind (with its embedded magnetic field) and the geomagnetic field.  That the Earth's dipole axis is offset from the Earth's spin vector by ~11 degrees and presents a changing orientation to the oncoming solar wind with a daily periodicity is well illustrated in the visuals.  Additional graphics illustrate concepts of magnetic field line reconnection and magnetospheric substorms.

In addition to these web pages, NSSDC also has newly included in its ftp distribution area many of the magnetospheric magnetic field model codes previously accessible from the ISTP computers.

Other community-important services previously hosted on the ISTP computers and now moving to the NSSDC computer environment will be further discussed in the next NSSDC Newsletter.