Geomagnetic jerks in the Swarm Era

The timely provision of geomagnetic observations as part of the ESA Swarm mission means analysis and modelling can be conducted rapidly and kept up-to-date in a manner not possible before. Observations from each of the three satellites in the Swarm constellation at 1Hz are available within 4 days and hourly mean ground observatory network measurements (AUX_OBS_2) are updated every 3 months by the British Geological Survey (BGS). This makes it possible to study very recent changes of the magnetic field. In particular here we investigate variations known as geomagnetic jerks. Given that jerks represent (currently) unpredictable changes in the internal geomagnetic field, we ask what impact they might have on the accuracy of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field Model (IGRF). The 12th generation of the IGRF was last updated using observations up to mid-2014 and provides a snapshot of the geomagnetic field at 2015 as well as a prediction of variations until 2020.