Quoted from: https://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/models/models_at_glance.php

Model Description
The Drag Temperature Model (DTM) is a semi-empirical model describing the temperature, density, and composition of the Earth's thermosphere in the altitude range [120 - 1,500] km. DTM2013 was developed in the framework of the Advanced Thermosphere Modelling and Orbit Prediction project (ATMOP). The DTM2013 model is fitted to the high-resolution and high-precision accelerometer-inferred densities from the CHAMP and GRACE missions, but also to 2.5 years of GOCE data at 270 km. The low-resolution densities derived from orbit perturbation analysis as well as spectrometer data from Atmosphere Explorer and Dynamics Explorer have also been used, i.e., the same density data sets that were used in the construction of DTM2009 and DTM2012. This model is constructed using the 30 cm radio flux as solar proxy, and the 3-hour am index as geomagnetic proxy.

Model Input
The DTM uses solar radio flux, either F30 or F10.7 (daily and 81-day average values) and geomagnetic Kp index. The DTM at CCMC is run with F30 scaled to F10.7 and Kp.

Model Output
The model predicts total and partial densities (atomic hydrogen, helium, atomic oxygen, molecular nitrogen, and molecular oxygen in g/cm^3), as well as temperature and exospheric temperature, as a function of the user-provided values of date, location, solar flux and geomagnetic activity.

References and relevant publications

• Evaluation of the DTM-2009 thermosphere model for benchmarking purposes
• The DTM-2013 thermosphere model
• Atmospheric densities derived from CHAMP/STAR accelerometer observations
• The DTM-2000 empirical thermosphere model with new data assimilation and constraints at lower boundary: accuracy and properties

Relevant links
http://www.atmop.eu/index.php/models

CCMC Contact(s)
Katherine Garcia-Sage, Jia.yue
301-286-3651, 301-286-1648

Developer Contact(s)
Sean Bruinsma