Improving the Accuracy of a Heliocentric Potential (HCP) Prediction Model for the Aviation Radiation Dose

The space radiation dose over air routes including polar routes should be carefully considered, especially when space\udweather shows sudden disturbances such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), flares, and accompanying solar energetic\udparticle events. We recently established a heliocentric potential (HCP) prediction model for real-time operation of the\udCARI-6 and CARI-6M programs. Specifically, the HCP value is used as a critical input value in the CARI-6/6M programs,\udwhich estimate the aviation route dose based on the effective dose rate. The CARI-6/6M approach is the most widely used\udtechnique, and the programs can be obtained from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). However, HCP values\udare given at a one month delay on the FAA official webpage, which makes it difficult to obtain real-time information on the\udaviation route dose. In order to overcome this critical limitation regarding the time delay for space weather customers, we\uddeveloped a HCP prediction model based on sunspot number variations (Hwang et al. 2015). In this paper, we focus on\udimprovements to our HCP prediction model and update it with neutron monitoring data. We found that the most accurate\udmethod to derive the HCP value involves (1) real-time daily sunspot assessments, (2) predictions of the daily HCP by our\udprediction algorithm, and (3) calculations of the resultant daily effective dose rate. Additionally, we also derived the HCP\udprediction algorithm in this paper by using ground neutron counts. With the compensation stemming from the use of\udground neutron count data, the newly developed HCP prediction model was improved