CRRES observation and STEERB simulation of the 9 October 1990 electron radiation belt dropout event

We examine and simulate the electron radiation belt dropout event on 9 October 1990. CRRES observations show that significant depletions of electron fluxes occurred at energies similar to 0.1- 1.0 MeV beyond 6 R-E and at energies >similar to 0.4 MeV within 6 R-E. The three- dimensional kinetic radiation belt model STEERB is used to simulate this dropout event, taking into account the magnetopause shadowing, adiabatic transport, radial diffusion, and plume and chorus wave- particle interactions. Our results show that STEERB code can basically reproduce the observed depletion of similar to 0.1-1.0 MeV electron fluxes throughout the outer radiation belt, suggesting that the competition and combination of all these physical mechanisms can well explain this electron radiation belt dropout event. Citation: Su, Z., F. Xiao, H. Zheng, and S. Wang (2011), CRRES observation and STEERB simulation of the 9 October 1990 electron radiation belt dropout event, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L06106, doi: 10.1029/2011GL046873.