Reports on Radiation Exposure During Air Travel

The Radiobiology Research Team performs research on the effects of ionizing and nonionizing radiation on living systems, identifies radiation hazards in the aviation environment, and studies methods of protection from such hazards.

The following OAM Reports, FAA Advisory Circulars, and scientific publications are available as PDF (requires Adobe Acrobat) files. To view and print PDF files, you must first download the Acrobat Reader, which is free and available from Adobe Systems, Inc.

• Ionizing Radiation and Radiation Safety in Aerospace Environments (PDF)
• MIRA 2017: A CARI-7 Based Solar Radiation Alert System (PDF)
• ESRAS: An Enhanced Solar Radiation Alert System (PDF)
• CARI-NAIRAS: Calculating Flight Doses from NAIRAS Data using CARI (PDF)
• Crewmember Training on In-Flight Radiation Exposure (PDF)
• Galactic Cosmic Radiation Exposure of Pregnant Aircrew Members II (PDF)
• Ionizing Radiation in Earth's Atmosphere and in Space Near Earth (PDF)
• Occupational Exposure to Ionizing Radiation for Crews of Suborbital Spacecraft: Questions and Answers (PDF)
• Radiation Exposure of Air-Carrier Crewmembers II (PDF)
• Recent and Planned Developments in the CARI Program (PDF)
• Solar Radiation Alert System (revised 5/30/08) (PDF)
• What Aircrews Should Know About Their Occupational Exposure to Ionizing Radiation (PDF)
• X-Ray Backscatter Security Scanners at U.S. Airports (PDF)

Recent publications for which reprints are available include:

Tobiska, W.K., W. Atwell, P. Beck, E. Benton, K. Copeland, et al. Advances in atmospheric radiation measurements and modeling needed to improve international air safety, Space Weather (May 2015) 13(4):202-210 + Supplements S1-S3 doi:10.1002/2015SW001169

Copeland, K. Influence of the superposition approximation on calculated effective dose rates from galactic cosmic rays at aerospace related altitudes, Space Weather (E-pub, July 2015) doi:10.1002/2015SW001210

Copeland K. CARI-7A: Development and Validation, Radiation Protection Dosimetry 175(4):419- 431 (E-pub. ahead of print, Jan. 2017), doi: 10.1093/rpd/ncw369

Copeland, K. and W. Atwell, Influence of Aircraft Self-Shielding on World-Wide Calculations of Effective Dose Rates to Occupants, 48th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 8-12 July 2018, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Paper ICES-2018-280 (E-pub July 2018)

Copeland, K., D. Matthiä, and M. Meier, Solar cosmic ray dose rate assessments during GLE 72 using MIRA and PANDOCA, Space Weather (E-pub, August 2018), doi: 10.1002/2018SW001917

Matthias M.M., K. Copeland, D. Matthiä, C.J. Mertens, and K. Schennetten, First steps towards the verification of models for the assessment of the radiation exposure at aviation altitudes, Space Weather, (Sept. 2018, E-pub Aug. 7, 2018) 16(9):1269-1276, doi: 10.1002/2018SW001984

Copeland, K. and W. Atwell, Flight safety implications of the extreme solar proton event of 23 February 1956, Advances in Space Research, (Jan. 2019, E-pub Dec. 2018) 63:665-671, doi:10.1016/j.asr.2018.11.005

Atwell, W, K. Copeland, and F. F. Badavi, Geomagnetically-trapped and galactic cosmic radiation environments and absorbed dose calculations for a hypothetical sounding rocket trajectory, 49th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 8-12 July 2019, Boston, Massachusetts. Paper ICES-2019-18 (E-pub July 2019)

Matthias M. Meier, Kyle Copeland, Klara Klöble, Daniel Matthiä, Mona C. Plettenberg, Kai Schennetten, Michael Wirtz, and Christine E. Hellweg, Radiation in the Atmosphere - A Hazard to Aviation Safety?, Atmosphere, (2020) 11:1358(32pages), doi:10.3390/atmos11121358