Simulation of the temporal variations of the galactic cosmic-ray intensity at neutron monitor energies

We show that the temporal variations of the integrated galactic cosmic-ray intensity at neutron monitor energies (approximately above 3 GeV) can be reproduced applying a semi-empirical 1-D diffusion-convection model for the cosmic-ray transport in interplanetary space. We divide the interplanetary region into `magnetic shells' and find the relative reduction that each shell causes to the cosmic-ray intensity. Then the cosmic-ray intensity at the Earth is reproduced by the successive influence of all shells between the Earth and the heliospheric termination shock. We find that the position of the termination shock does not significantly affect the cosmic-ray intensity although there are some differences between the results for a constant and a variable termination shock radius. We also reproduce the cosmic-ray intensity applying the analytical solution of the force-field approximation (Perko, 1987) and find that the results cannot fit the observed data. Our results are compared with the Climax (geomagnetic cut-off 3 GV) and Huancayo (geomagnetic cut-off 13 GV) neutron monitor measurements for almost two solar cycles (1976–1996).