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International Geomagnetic Reference Field - The Twelfth generation

Edited by: Erwan Thebault, Christopher Finlay

This special issue of is devoted to modelling the Earth’s magnetic field, in particular, to the construction of the 12th generation of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field.

Publication started: 25 April 2015
Publication finished: 23 September 2015

  1. The 12th revision of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) was issued in December 2014 by the International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (IAGA) Division V Working Group V-MOD (

    Authors: Erwan Thébault, Christopher C. Finlay, Patrick Alken, Ciaran D. Beggan, Elisabeth Canet, Arnaud Chulliat, Benoit Langlais, Vincent Lesur, Frank J. Lowes, Chandrasekharan Manoj, Martin Rother and Reyko Schachtschneider
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2015 67:112
  2. We present an attempt to improve the quality of the geomagnetic field measurements from the Polar Orbiting Geophysical Observatory (POGO) satellite missions in the late 1960s. Inaccurate satellite positions ar...

    Authors: Reto Stockmann, Freddy Christiansen, Nils Olsen and Andrew Jackson
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2015 67:102
  3. We describe the main field and secular variation candidate models for the 12th generation of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field model. These two models are derived from the same parent model, in whi...

    Authors: Diana Saturnino, Benoit Langlais, François Civet, Erwan Thébault and Mioara Mandea
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2015 67:96
  4. Each of the three satellites of the European Space Agency Swarm mission carries an absolute scalar magnetometer (ASM) that provides the nominal 1-Hz scalar data of the mission for both science and calibration pur...

    Authors: Pierre Vigneron, Gauthier Hulot, Nils Olsen, Jean-Michel Léger, Thomas Jager, Laura Brocco, Olivier Sirol, Pierdavide Coïsson, Xavier Lalanne, Arnaud Chulliat, François Bertrand, Axel Boness and Isabelle Fratter
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2015 67:95
  5. We propose candidate models for IGRF-12. These models were derived from parent models built from 10 months of Swarm satellite data and 1.5 years of magnetic observatory data. Using the same parameterisation, a...

    Authors: Vincent Lesur, Martin Rother, Ingo Wardinski, Reyko Schachtschneider, Mohamed Hamoudi and Aude Chambodut
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2015 67:87
  6. The 12th generation of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) was adopted in December 2014 by the Working Group V-MOD appointed by the International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (IAGA...

    Authors: Erwan Thébault, Christopher C Finlay, Ciarán D Beggan, Patrick Alken, Julien Aubert, Olivier Barrois, Francois Bertrand, Tatiana Bondar, Axel Boness, Laura Brocco, Elisabeth Canet, Aude Chambodut, Arnaud Chulliat, Pierdavide Coïsson, François Civet, Aimin Du…
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2015 67:79
  7. We present the geomagnetic field model COV-OBS.x1, covering 1840 to 2020, from which have been derived candidate models for the IGRF-12. Towards the most recent epochs, it is primarily constrained by first dif...

    Authors: Nicolas Gillet, Olivier Barrois and Christopher C Finlay
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2015 67:71
  8. We describe the candidate models submitted by the British Geological Survey for the 12th generation International Geomagnetic Reference Field. These models are extracted from a spherical harmonic ‘parent model...

    Authors: Brian Hamilton, Victoria A Ridley, Ciarán D Beggan and Susan Macmillan
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2015 67:69
  9. The International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) is a model of the geomagnetic main field and its secular variation, produced every 5 years from candidate models proposed by a number of international resea...

    Authors: Patrick Alken, Stefan Maus, Arnaud Chulliat and Chandrasekharan Manoj
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2015 67:68
  10. The role of the Absolute Scalar Magnetometer (ASM) in the European Space Agency (ESA) Swarm mission is to deliver absolute measurements of the magnetic field’s strength for science investigations and in-flight...

    Authors: Jean-Michel Léger, Thomas Jager, François Bertrand, Gauthier Hulot, Laura Brocco, Pierre Vigneron, Xavier Lalanne, Arnaud Chulliat and Isabelle Fratter
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2015 67:57