Flight safety implications of the extreme solar proton event of 23 February 1956

Abstract

There is considerable speculation about the effects at aircraft altitudes resulting from extreme solar proton events. The ground level event (GLE) of 23 February 1956 (GLE 5), remains the largest solar proton event of the neutron monitor era in terms of its influence on count rates at monitors near sea level. During this GLE the count rate was increased by as much as 4760% (15-min average) at the Leeds monitor relative to the count rate from galactic cosmic radiation (GCR). Two modern models of the event cumulative solar proton spectrum for this event, a 6-parameter fit in energy and a 4-parameter Band fit in rigidity, are compared with 1-h of GCR at solar minimum. While effective doses calculated with CARI-7A for both models at low geomagnetic cutoff rigidities are indeed high when compared with GCR and can exceed recommended exposure limits, both GLE spectra exhibit a much stronger dependence on cutoff rigidity than GCR, and a larger fraction of the dose from neutrons. At locations with cutoff rigidities above 4.2 and 6.4 GV, respectively, the GLE effective doses are smaller than the GCR hourly dose. At locations with cutoff rigidities above about 4 GV, GCR was the dominant source of exposure in 10 h or less at all altitudes examined. This suggests that if a similar event occurs in the future, low- and mid-latitude flights at modern jet flight altitudes could be well-protected by Earth’s magnetic field.