Research Article

Calibration of the GOES 6–16 high-energy proton detectors based on modelling of ground level enhancement energy spectra

¹ KBR, Houston, TX 77002, USA
² Space Radiation Analysis Group, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058, USA

^* Corresponding author: shaowen.hu-1@nasa.gov

Received: 31 August 2021
Accepted: 14 February 2022

Abstract

For several decades, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) series have provided both real-time and historical data for radiation exposure estimation and solar proton radiation environment modelling. Recently, several groups conducted calibration studies that significantly reduced the uncertainties on the response of GOES proton detectors, thus improving the reliability of the spectral observations of solar energetic particle events. In this work, the long-established Band function fitting set for past ground level enhancements (GLEs) and their recent revision are used as references to estimate the best matching energies of proton channels of GOES 6–16, with emphasis on comparing with previous calibration studies on the high energetic proton measurements. The calculated energies for different missions in the same series (GOES 8, 10, 11) show overall consistency but with small variations, and differences among missions of different series are noticeable for measurements crossing the past three solar cycles, though the results are sensitive to the method used to subtract background fluxes. The discrepancy and agreement with previous calibration efforts are demonstrated with other independent analyses. It is verified that the integral channel P11 of GOES 6–16 can be reliably used as a differential proton channel with an effective energy of about 1 GeV. Therefore, the multi-decade in situ measurements of the GOES series can be utilized with more extensive energy coverage to improve space radiation environment models.