The BGS candidate models for IGRF-13 with a retrospective analysis of IGRF-12 secular variation forecasts

Abstract

The three candidate models submitted by the British Geological Survey for the 13th generation International Geomagnetic Reference Field are described. These DGRF and IGRF models are derived from vector and scalar magnetic field data from the European Space Agency Swarm satellites and ground observatories, covering the period 2013.9 to 2019.7. The internal field model has time dependence for degrees 1 to 15, represented by order 6 B-splines with knots at six monthly intervals. We also solve for a degree 1 external field time dependence describing annual and semi-annual signals with additional dependence on a bespoke Vector Magnetic Disturbance index. Satellite data are weighted by spatial density, along-track standard deviations, and a larger-scale noise estimator defined in terms of a measure of Local Area Vector Activity at the geographically closest magnetic observatories to the sampled datum. Forecasting of the magnetic field secular variation for 2020–2025 is by advection of the main field using steady core surface flows with steady acceleration applied. We also investigate the performance of the previous generation of candidate secular variation models, for IGRF-12, analysing the agreement of the candidates between 2015 and 2020 with the retrospective IGRF-13. We find that there is no clear distinction between the performance of mathematically and physically extrapolated forecasts in the period 2015–2020. We confirm that the methodology for the BGS IGRF-12 predictions performed well, despite observed secular accelerations that are highlighted by our analysis, and thus justify the methodology used for our IGRF-13 SV candidate.