scholarly journals Modeling of Topside Ionosphere and Plasmasphere

Author(s):  
Shigeto Watanabe ◽  
Yoshizumi Miyoshi ◽  
Fuminori Tsuchiya ◽  
Atsusi Kumamoto ◽  
Yoshiya Kasahara ◽  
...  

Abstract We developed a new topside ionosphere and plasmasphere model using a machine learning technique using approximately five million electron density datasets from the Japanese satellites, namely, Hinotori, Akebono, and Arase. The topside ionosphere and plasmasphere model (TIP-model) can estimate electron densities at altitudes ranging from 500 km to 30,000 km in terms of latitude, longitude, universal time, season, and solar and magnetic activities with time history. The model shows the time-dependent 3D structure of the plasmasphere in response to solar and magnetic activities. The constructed TIP-model reproduces plasmapause, plasma tail/erosion of the plasmasphere, and the plasma escape near the magnetic pole. The total electron content (TEC) in the plasmasphere was also obtained through the integration of electron density from 2,000 km to 30,000 km altitudes. The TEC of the plasmasphere is approximately 5 TECU near the magnetic equator, and it depends strongly on geomagnetic latitude, longitude, local time, and solar and magnetic activities.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1559
Author(s):  
Fabricio S. Prol ◽  
M. Mainul Hoque

A 3D-model approach has been developed to describe the electron density of the topside ionosphere and plasmasphere based on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) measurements onboard low Earth orbit satellites. Electron density profiles derived from ionospheric Radio Occultation (RO) data are extrapolated to the upper ionosphere and plasmasphere based on a linear Vary-Chap function and Total Electron Content (TEC) measurements. A final update is then obtained by applying tomographic algorithms to the slant TEC measurements. Since the background specification is created with RO data, the proposed approach does not require using any external ionospheric/plasmaspheric model to adapt to the most recent data distributions. We assessed the model accuracy in 2013 and 2018 using independent TEC data, in situ electron density measurements, and ionosondes. A systematic better specification was obtained in comparison to NeQuick, with improvements around 15% in terms of electron density at 800 km, 26% at the top-most region (above 10,000 km) and 26% to 55% in terms of TEC, depending on the solar activity level. Our investigation shows that the developed model follows a known variation of electron density with respect to geographic/geomagnetic latitude, altitude, solar activity level, season, and local time, revealing the approach as a practical and useful tool for describing topside ionosphere and plasmasphere using satellite-based GNSS data.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 111
Author(s):  
Sri Ekawati

The solar flare is potential to cause sudden increase of the electron density in the ionosphere,particularly in D layer, known as Sudden Ionospheric Disturbances (SID). This increase of electron density occurs not only in the ionospheric D layer but also in the ionospheric E and F layers. Total Electron Content (TEC) measured by GPS is the total number of electrons from D to F layer. The aim of this research is to study the effect of solar flare x-rays, greater than M5 class in 2015, on ionospheric TEC over Bandung and Manado. This paper presents the preliminary result of ionospheric TEC response on solar flare occurrence over Indonesia. The ionospheric TEC data is derived from GPS Ionospheric Scintillation and TEC Monitor (GISTM) receiver at Bandung (-6.90o S;107.6o E geomagnetic latitude 16.54o S) and Manado (1.48o N; 124.85o E geomagnetic latitude 7.7o S). The solar x-rays flares classes analyzed where M5.1 on 10 March 2015 and M7.9 on 25 June 2015. Slant TEC (STEC) values where calculated to obtain Vertical TEC (VTEC) and the Differential of the VTEC (DVTEC) per PRN satellite for further analysis. The results showed that immediately after the flare, there where sudden enhancement of the VTEC and the DVTEC (over Bandung and Manado) at the same time. The time delay of ionospheric TEC response on M5.1 flare was approximately 2 minutes, then the VTEC increased by 0.5 TECU and the DVTEC rose sharply by 0.5 – 0.6 TECU/minutes. Moreover, the time delay after the M7.9 flare was approximately 11 minutes, then the VTEC increased by 1 TECU and the DVTEC rose sharply by 0.6 – 0.9 TECU/minutes. ABSTRAK Flare matahari berpotensi meningkatkan kerapatan elektron ionosfer secara mendadak, khususnya di lapisan D, yang dikenal sebagai Sudden Ionospheric Disturbances (SID). Peningkatan kerapatan elektron tersebut terjadi tidak hanya di lapisan D, tetapi juga di lapisan E dan F ionosfer. Total Electron Content (TEC) dari GPS merupakan jumlah banyaknya elektron total dari lapisan D sampai lapisan F. Penelitian ini bertujuan mengetahui efek flare, yang lebih besar dari kelas M5 tahun 2015, terhadap TEC ionosfer di atas Bandung dan Manado. Makalah ini merupakan hasil awal dari respon TEC ionosfer terhadap fenomena flare di atas Indonesia. Data TEC ionosfer diperoleh dari penerima GPS Ionospheric Scintillation and TEC Monitor (GISTM) di Bandung (-6,90o S; 107,60o E lintang geomagnet 16,54o LS) dan Manado (1,48oLU;124,85oBT lintang geomagnet 7,7o LS) dikaitkan dengan kejadian flare kelas M5.1 pada tanggal 10 Maret 2015 dan kelas M7.9 pada tanggal 25 Juni 2015. Nilai Slant TEC (STEC) dihitung untuk memperoleh nilai Vertical TEC (VTEC), kemudian nilai Differential of VTEC (DVTEC) per PRN satelit diperoleh untuk analisis selanjutnya. Hasil menunjukkan segera setelah terjadi flare, terjadi peningkatan VTEC dan DVTEC (di atas Bandung dan Manado) secara mendadak pada waktu yang sama. Waktu tunda dari respon TEC ionosfer setelah terjadi flare M5.1 adalah sekitar 2 menit, kemudian VTEC meningkat sebesar 0,5 TECU dan DVTEC meningkat secara tajam sebesar 0,5 – 0,6 TECU/menit. Sedangkan, waktu tunda setelah terjadi flare M7.9 adalah 11 menit, kemudian VTEC meningkat sebesar 1 TECU dan DVTEC meningkat secara tajam sebesar 0,6 – 0,9 TECU/menit.


2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Sibanda ◽  
L. A. McKinnell

Abstract. Successful empirical modeling of the topside ionosphere relies on the availability of good quality measured data. The Alouette, ISIS and Intercosmos-19 satellite missions provided large amounts of topside sounder data, but with limited coverage of relevant geophysical conditions (e.g., geographic location, diurnal, seasonal and solar activity) by each individual mission. Recently, methods for inferring the electron density distribution in the topside ionosphere from Global Positioning System (GPS)-based total electron content (TEC) measurements have been developed. This study is focused on the modeling efforts in South Africa and presents the implementation of a technique for reconstructing the topside ionospheric electron density (Ne) using a combination of GPS-TEC and ionosonde measurements and empirically obtained Upper Transition Height (UTH). The technique produces reasonable profiles as determined by the global models already in operation. With the added advantage that the constructed profiles are tied to reliable measured GPS-TEC and the empirically determined upper transition height, the technique offers a higher level of confidence in the resulting Ne profiles.


2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 831-840 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Zhao ◽  
W. Wan ◽  
J. Lei ◽  
Y. Wei ◽  
Y. Sahai ◽  
...  

Abstract. Positive ionospheric storm effects that occurred during the superstorm on 20 November 2003 are investigated using a combination of ground-based Global Positioning System (GPS) total electron content (TEC), and the meridian chain of ionosondes distributed along the Latin America longitude of ~280° E. Both the ground-based GPS TEC and ionosonde electron density profile data reveal significant enhancements at mid-low latitudes over the 280° E region during the main phase of the November 2003 superstorm. The maximum enhancement of the topside ionospheric electron content is 3.2–7.7 times of the bottomside ionosphere at the locations of the ionosondes distributed around the mid- and low latitudes. Moreover, the height of maximum electron density exceeds 400 km and increases by 100 km compared with the quiet day over the South American area from middle to low latitudes, which might have resulted from a continuous eastward penetration electric field and storm-generated equatorward winds. Our results do not support the conclusions of Yizengaw et al. (2006), who suggested that the observed positive storm over the South American sector was mainly the consequence of the changes of the bottomside ionosphere. The so-called "unusual" responses of the topside ionosphere for the November 2003 storm in Yizengaw et al. (2006) are likely associated with the erroneous usage of magnetometer and incomplete data.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 1171-1189
Author(s):  
Tatjana Gerzen ◽  
David Minkwitz ◽  
Michael Schmidt ◽  
Eren Erdogan

Abstract. The accuracy and availability of satellite-based applications, like Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning and remote sensing, crucially depend on the knowledge of the ionospheric electron density distribution. The tomography of the ionosphere is one of the major tools for providing links to specific ionospheric corrections and studying and monitoring physical processes in the ionosphere and plasmasphere. In this work, we apply an ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) approach for the 4D electron density reconstruction of the topside ionosphere and plasmasphere, with the focus on the investigation of different propagation models, and compare them with the iterative reconstruction technique of simultaneous multiplicative column normalized method plus (SMART+). The slant total electron content (STEC) measurements of 11 low earth orbit (LEO) satellites are assimilated into the reconstructions. We conduct a case study on a global grid with altitudes between 430 and 20 200 km, for two periods of the year 2015, covering quiet to perturbed ionospheric conditions. Particularly the performance of the methods for estimating independent STEC and electron density measurements from the three Swarm satellites is analysed. The results indicate that the methods of EnKF, with exponential decay as the propagation model, and SMART+ perform best, providing, in summary, the lowest residuals.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabricio Prol ◽  
Mainul Hoque

<p>The plasmasphere is a region of continuous study due to some open questions related to the plasmaspheric internal dynamics, boundaries, and coupling processes with the magnetosphere and ionosphere, in particular during space weather events. Given such interests, the results of a new tomographic method to estimate the plasmaspheric electron density will be presented. The tomographic reconstruction is applied using measurements of Total Electron Content (TEC) from the Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers aboard the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate / Formosa Satellite Mission 3 (COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3). Despite relevant challenges imposed by the orbital geometry to obtain stable electron density reconstructions of a large area such as the plasmasphere, the developed approach was capable of representing the natural variability of the plasma ambient in terms of geographic/geomagnetic latitude, altitude, solar activity, season, and local time. The quality assessment was carried out using two years of in-situ electron density measurements from spacecraft deployed by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). Our investigation revealed that improvements over 20% can be achieved for electron density specification by TEC data assimilation into background ionization.</p>


Author(s):  
Fabricio dos Santos Prol ◽  
Mainul Hoque ◽  
Arthur Amaral Ferreira

As part of the space weather monitoring, the response of the ionosphere and plasmasphere to geomagnetic storms is typically under continuous supervision by operational services. Fortunately, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers on board low Earth orbit satellites provides a unique opportunity for developing image representations that can capture the global distribution of the electron density in the plasmasphere and topside ionosphere. Among the difficulties of plasmaspheric imaging based on GNSS measurements, the development of procedures to invert the Total Electron Content (TEC) into electron density distributions remains as a challenging task. In this study, a new tomographic reconstruction technique is presented to estimate the electron density from TEC data along the METOP (Meteorological Operational) satellites. The proposed method is evaluated during four geomagnetic storms to check the capabilities of the tomography for space weather monitoring. The investigation shows that the developed method can successfully capture and reconstruct well-known enhancement and decrease of electron density variabilities during storms. The comparison with in-situ electron densities has shown an improvement around 11% and a better description of plasma variabilities due to the storms compared to the background. Our study also reveals that the plasmasphere TEC contribution to ground-based TEC may vary 10 to 60% during geomagnetic storms, and the contribution tends to reduce during the storm-recovery phase


2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pin-Hsuan Cheng ◽  
Charles Lin ◽  
Yuichi Otsuka ◽  
Hanli Liu ◽  
Panthalingal Krishanunni Rajesh ◽  
...  

AbstractThis study investigates the medium-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs) statistically at the low-latitude equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) region in the northern hemisphere. We apply the automatic detection algorithm including the three-dimensional fast Fourier transform (3-D FFT) and support vector machine (SVM) on total electron content (TEC) observations, derived from a network of ground-based global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers in Taiwan (14.5° N geomagnetic latitude; 32.5° inclination), to identify MSTID from other waves or irregularity features. The obtained results are analyzed statistically to examine the behavior of low-latitude MSTIDs. Statistical results indicate the following characteristics. First, the southward (equatorward) MSTIDs are observed almost every day during 0800–2100 LT in Spring and Winter. At midnight, southward MSTIDs are more discernible in Summer and majority of them are propagating from Japan to Taiwan. Second, northward (poleward) MSTIDs are more frequently detected during 1200–2100 LT in Spring and Summer with the secondary peak of occurrence between day of year (DOY) 100–140 during 0000–0300 LT. The characteristics of the MSTIDs are interpreted with additional observations from radio occultation (RO) soundings of FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC as well as modeled atmospheric waves from the high-resolution Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) suggesting that the nighttime MSTIDs in Summer is likely connected to the atmospheric gravity waves (AGWs).


2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (18) ◽  
pp. 4943-4951 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. S. Zerefos ◽  
E. Gerasopoulos ◽  
I. Tsagouri ◽  
B. E. Psiloglou ◽  
A. Belehaki ◽  
...  

Abstract. This study aims at providing experimental evidence, to support the hypothesis according to which the movement of the moon's shadow sweeping the ozone layer at supersonic speed, during a solar eclipse, creates gravity waves in the atmosphere. An experiment was conducted to study eclipse induced thermal fluctuations in the ozone layer (via measurements of total ozone column, ozone photolysis rates and UV irradiance), the ionosphere (Ionosonde Total Electron Content – ITEC, peak electron density height – hmF2), and the troposphere (temperature, relative humidity), before, during and after the total solar eclipse of 29 March 2006. We found the existence of eclipse induced dominant oscillations in the parameters related to the ozone layer and the ionosphere, with periods ranging between 30–40 min. Cross-spectrum analyses resulted to statistically significant square coherences between the observed oscillations, strengthening thermal stratospheric ozone forcing as the main mechanism for GWs. Additional support for a source below the ionosphere was provided by the amplitude of the oscillations in the ionospheric electron density, which increased upwards from 160 to 220 km height. Even though similar oscillations were shown in surface temperature and relative humidity data, no clear evidence for tropospheric influence could be derived from this study, due to the modest amplitude of these waves and the manifold rationale inside the boundary layer.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fuqing Huang ◽  
Jiuhou Lei ◽  
Chao Xiong

<p>Equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) are typically ionospheric irregularities that frequently occur at the low latitudes and equatorial regions, which can significantly affect the propagation of radio waves. In this study, we reported a unique strong EPB that happened at middle latitudes over the Asian sector during the quiescent period. The multiple observations including total electron content (TEC) from Beidou geostationary satellites and GPS, ionosondes, in-situ electron density from SWARM and meteor radar are used to explore the characteristic and mechanism of the observed EPB. The unique strong EPB was associated with great nighttime TEC/electron density enhancement at the middle latitudes, which moves toward eastward. The potential physical processes of the observed EPB are also discussed.</p>


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