03/31/2021 Radiation on airline exposure

Found this on one of the space weather sites, thought it was interesting. Anyone w info on actual human effects?

We have developed a new predictive model of aviation radiation. It's called E-RAD--short for Empirical RADiation model. We are constantly flying radiation sensors onboard airplanes over the US and and around the world, so far collecting more than 22,000 gps-tagged radiation measurements. Using this unique dataset, we can predict the dosage on any flight over the USA with an error no worse than 15%.

E-RAD lets us do something new: Every day we monitor approximately 1400 flights criss-crossing the 10 busiest routes in the continental USA. Typically, this includes more than 80,000 passengers per day. E-RAD calculates the radiation exposure for every single flight.

The Hot Flights Table is a daily summary of these calculations. It shows the 5 charter flights with the highest dose rates; the 5 commercial flights with the highest dose rates; 5 commercial flights with near-average dose rates; and the 5 commercial flights with the lowest dose rates. Passengers typically experience dose rates that are 20 to 70 times higher than natural radiation at sea level.
Flight
Dose Rate
(x Sea Level)
Altitude
(feet)
Origin
Destination
Duration
Top 5 (or less*) Charter Flights
FlexJet 435
61.1
43000
West Palm Be
Teterboro
02:13:09
NetJets 154
59.0
43000
Teterboro
West Palm Be
02:30:38
NetJets 591
57.7
43000
White Plains
West Palm Be
02:50:43
NetJets 589
57.5
43000
White Plains
West Palm Be
03:12:03
NetJets 757
53.4
40000
White Plains
West Palm Be
02:34:21
Top 5 Commercial Flights
United 2757
60.4
41000
Chicago
Newark
01:29:33
Southwest Airlines 1613
55.9
40000
Baltimore
Chicago
01:56:07
Southwest Airlines 2753
55.8
40000
Washington
Chicago
01:42:54
Southwest Airlines 2817
55.6
41000
Atlanta
New York
01:32:21
United 299
55.2
40000
Washington
Chicago
01:43:03
Average 5 Commercial Flights
United 1613
40.3
36000
Newark
Fort Lauderd
02:39:04
Republic Airline 3643
40.2
35000
Atlanta
Newark
01:25:44
Delta 1533
40.2
37000
Atlanta
Orlando
00:59:28
SkyWest 3450
40.1
37000
San Francisc
Santa Ana
01:00:02
Delta 1621
40.1
36100
New York
West Palm Be
02:30:05
Bottom 5 Commercial Flights
Delta 1255
25.6
28000
Newark
Atlanta
02:05:44
Southwest Airlines 4259
24.5
29000
Oakland
Burbank
00:47:45
SkyWest 5228
24.4
29000
San Francisc
Ontario
01:05:06
JetSuiteX 171
22.7
28000
Burbank
Oakland
01:04:30
Alaska Airlines 9804
22.5
28000
Los Angeles
San Francisc
00:53:38
To measure radiation on airplanes, we use the same sensors we fly to the stratosphere onboard Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloons: neutron bubble chambers and X-ray/gamma-ray Geiger tubes sensitive to energies between 10 keV and 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.

Column definitions: (1) The flight number; (2) The maximum dose rate during the flight, expressed in units of natural radiation at sea level; (3) The maximum altitude of the plane in feet above sea level; (4) Departure city; (5) Arrival city; (6) Duration of the flight.

SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: Approximately once a week, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus fly space weather balloons to the stratosphere over California. These balloons are equipped with radiation sensors that detect cosmic rays, a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. Cosmic rays can seed clouds, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. Furthermore, there are studies ( #1, #2, #3, #4) linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in the general population. Our latest measurements show that cosmic rays are intensifying, with an increase of more than 18% since 2015:

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The data points in the graph above correspond to the peak of the Regener-Pfotzer maximum, which lies about 67,000 feet above central California. When cosmic rays crash into Earth's atmosphere, they produce a spray of secondary particles that is most intense at the entrance to the stratosphere. Physicists Eric Reneger and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today.

En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes:

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In this plot, dose rates are expessed as multiples of sea level. For instance, we see that boarding a plane that flies at 25,000 feet exposes passengers to dose rates ~10x higher than sea level. At 40,000 feet, the multiplier is closer to 50x.

The radiation sensors onboard our helium balloons detect X-rays and gamma-rays in the energy range 10 keV to 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.

Why are cosmic rays intensifying? The main reason is the sun. Solar storm clouds such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays when they pass by Earth. During Solar Maximum, CMEs are abundant and cosmic rays are held at bay. Now, however, the solar cycle is swinging toward Solar Minimum, allowing cosmic rays to return. Another reason could be the weakening of Earth's magnetic field, which helps protect us from deep-space radiation.