FlightRadiation
The cosmic radiation calculator for your year in the air.
Add every flight you take in a typical year: each route, whether it is round trip, and how often you fly it. Each leg is computed with the FAA's CARI-7 cosmic radiation model, using the solar conditions for the month you flew, and the PDF totals your annual effective dose in microsieverts, benchmarked flight by flight against ICRP-103 limits, a chest X-ray, and the natural background dose everyone gets at ground level.
- MODEL
- FAA CARI-7
- STANDARD
- ICRP-103 (2007)
- OUTPUT
- PDF, annual itinerary dose
- TURNAROUND
- Emailed in under a minute
Fig. 1. Galactic cosmic ray flux penetration against altitude. Effective dose rate at FL390 (11.9 km) runs roughly 100 times the ground-level cosmic rate near the equator and about 198 times it over the poles, because Earth's magnetic field deflects far less of the incoming flux at high latitudes.
Sample report: a frequent flyer's year
Three routes: a JFK to SFO round trip most months, a few London trips, one long haul to Singapore. This is the whole report for that itinerary. Your flights replace every value below.
2.1 The itinerary
| JFK ↔ SFO · round trip ×10 | 342 µSv/yr |
| LAX ↔ LHR · round trip ×3 | 267 µSv/yr |
| LHR ↔ SIN · round trip ×1 | 71 µSv/yr |
2.2 Total dose for the year
2.3 What that is worth knowing
The London round trip is the heaviest single trip at 89 µSv, but the shorter JFK to SFO hop flown ten times a year is the biggest annual contributor at just over half the total. Frequency, not distance, is what moves your year. It becomes worth tracking when a route is flown often, or during pregnancy.
2.4 How the year compares
Values in microsieverts (µSv). Medical-imaging and background doses from ICRP and NCRP Report 160 reference tables.
2.5 Where the dose concentrates
This itinerary sits at 0.68 mSv/yr, about 23% of the natural background dose everyone receives at ground level. Drop the JFK to SFO hop to five round trips and the year falls to about 0.51 mSv; the report shows you which leg to change first.
2.6 Reference levels (ICRP-103)
| Public, non-occupational (annual) | 1 mSv |
| Pregnancy, whole gestation | 1 mSv |
| EU aircrew roster limit (annual) | 6 mSv |
| Occupational limit, averaged 5 yr | 20 mSv/yr |
How this radiation exposure calculator works
The model, the assumptions, and the limits.
FAA CARI-7
Dose rates come from the FAA's own CARI-7 model. Your dose is set by three things: the geomagnetic cutoff rigidity along your track, which is how effectively Earth's magnetic field deflects cosmic rays and is not the same thing as latitude; your cruise altitude; and the state of the solar cycle in the month you flew.
ICRP-103 (2007)
Effective dose uses ICRP-103 tissue weighting factors. We report against ICRP-103 public, occupational, and gestational reference levels, not the older ICRP-60 values still seen in some operator documentation.
What we need from you
For each route: the two airports, whether it is round trip, and how many times a year you fly it. Add as many as you like. Optionally give us the month you flew, plus the cruise altitude and flight time if you know them, which replaces the cruise level and flight time we would otherwise estimate from the route length, and narrows the range on your figure. There is no account to create.
What this report is not
This is a dose estimate, not a medical diagnosis. Individual risk depends on age, sex, prior exposure, and stochastic factors outside the model. It does not model solar particle events, which are rare but can carry a large dose on a single high-latitude flight.
Put a real number on your year of flying.
Add your flights. Get back a CARI-7 dose figure for each one, with an uncertainty range, and a total for the year benchmarked against a chest X-ray and the natural background dose.
Build your itinerary
Add each flight you take in a year. We integrate the CARI-7 dose rate along every route, total it across the itinerary, and email the PDF the moment your payment clears.
I know the cruise altitude and flight time
Both are shown on the seat-back map and on your boarding pass or booking. Supplying them replaces our assumed profile and narrows the range on your figure from about 30% to about 25%.