scholarly journals Characterization of GPS total electron content (GPS-TEC) in Antarctica from 2004 to 2011

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emília Correia ◽  
Amanda Junqueira Paz ◽  
Mauricio A. Gende

<p>The vertical total electron content (VTEC) obtained from 2004 to 2011 at Comandante Ferraz Brazilian Antarctic Station (62.1°S, 58.4°W) is analyzed to study the mean diurnal, seasonal and annual variations. The maximum daytime VTEC had an annual variation that decreased from 2004 to 2008, and then starting to increase in 2009, which followed the variation of the solar activity. The daily VTEC shows good linear correlation with solar radiation intensity, which is also dependent on the solar zenithal angle. The mean diurnal VTEC shows a semiannual variation, with larger peaks in equinoxes for all years; no winter anomaly was observed, and in summer, there was no clear diurnal variation. The semiannual variation of the VTEC is also modulated by solar activity, with larger VTEC peaks when the solar activity was higher.</p>

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 865-873 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. P. Natali ◽  
A. Meza

Abstract. Annual, semiannual and seasonal variations of the Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) have been investigated during high solar activity in 2000. In this work we use Global IGS VTEC maps and Principal Component Analysis to study spatial and temporal ionospheric variability. The behavior of VTEC variations at two-hour periods, at noon and at night is analyzed. Particular characteristics associated with each period and the geomagnetic regions are highlighted. The variations at night are smaller than those obtained at noon. At noon it is possible to see patterns of the seasonal variation at high latitude, and patterns of the semiannual anomaly at low latitudes with a slow decrease towards mid latitudes. At night there is no evidence of seasonal or annual anomaly for any region, but it was possible to see the semiannual anomaly at low latitudes with a sudden decrease towards mid latitudes. In general, the semiannual behavior shows March–April equinox at least 40 % higher than September one. Similarities and differences are analyzed also with regard to the same analysis done for a period of low solar activity.


2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. A. Bolzan ◽  
A. Tardelli ◽  
V. G. Pillat ◽  
P. R. Fagundes ◽  
R. R. Rosa

Abstract. This paper analyses the multifractal aspects of the GPS data (measured during a period of low solar activity) obtained from two Brazilian stations: Belém (01.3° S, 48.3° W) and São José dos Campos (SJC) (23.2° S, 45.9° W). The results show that the respective geographic sites show important scaling differences as well as similarities when their multifractal signatures for vertical total electron content (VTEC) are compared. The f(α) spectra have a narrow shape for great scales, which indicates the predominance of deterministic phenomena, such as solar rotation (27 days) over intermittent phenomena. Furthermore, the f(α) spectra for both sites have a strong multifractality degree at small scales. This strong multifractality degree observed at small scales (1 to 12 h) at both sites is because the ionosphere over Brazil is a non-equilibrium system. The differences found were that Belém presented a stronger multifractality at small scales (1 h to 12 h) compared with SJC, particularly in 2006. The reason for this behaviour may be associated with the location of Belém, near the geomagnetic equator, where at this location the actions of X-rays, ultraviolet, and another wavelength from the Sun are more direct, strong, and constant throughout the whole year. Although the SJC site is near ionospheric equatorial anomaly (IEA) peaks, this interpretation could explain the higher values found for the intermittent parameter μ for Belém compared with SJC. Belém also showed the presence of one or two flattening regions for f(α) spectra at the same scales mentioned before. These differences and similarities also were interpreted in terms of the IEA content, where this phenomenon is an important source of intermittence due the presence of the VTEC peaks at ±20° geomagnetic latitudes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (S335) ◽  
pp. 159-161
Author(s):  
Khaoula El bouyahyaoui ◽  
Aziza Bounhir ◽  
Zouhair Benkhaldoun ◽  
Rolland FLEURY ◽  
Christine Amory-Mazaudier ◽  
...  

AbstractIn this work we present a method for detecting the activity of the ionosphere (TEC) and we illustrate the signature of the solar activity on the vertical total electron content VTEC, during 02 to 08 November 2015, using GPS measurements obtained from two stations in Morocco, the first one in Marrakech at Observatory of Oukaimeden OUCA (31°12′23.3″ N 7°51′58.8″ W), the second in Rabat, Rabt (33.9981°N;353.1457°E, geographic).


2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 1599-1612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weiping Jiang ◽  
Yifang Ma ◽  
Xiaohui Zhou ◽  
Zhao Li ◽  
Xiangdong An ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 4559
Author(s):  
Marjolijn Adolfs ◽  
Mohammed Mainul Hoque

With the availability of fast computing machines, as well as the advancement of machine learning techniques and Big Data algorithms, the development of a more sophisticated total electron content (TEC) model featuring the Nighttime Winter Anomaly (NWA) and other effects is possible and is presented here. The NWA is visible in the Northern Hemisphere for the American sector and in the Southern Hemisphere for the Asian longitude sector under solar minimum conditions. During the NWA, the mean ionization level is found to be higher in the winter nights compared to the summer nights. The approach proposed here is a fully connected neural network (NN) model trained with Global Ionosphere Maps (GIMs) data from the last two solar cycles. The day of year, universal time, geographic longitude, geomagnetic latitude, solar zenith angle, and solar activity proxy, F10.7, were used as the input parameters for the model. The model was tested with independent TEC datasets from the years 2015 and 2020, representing high solar activity (HSA) and low solar activity (LSA) conditions. Our investigation shows that the root mean squared (RMS) deviations are in the order of 6 and 2.5 TEC units during HSA and LSA period, respectively. Additionally, NN model results were compared with another model, the Neustrelitz TEC Model (NTCM). We found that the neural network model outperformed the NTCM by approximately 1 TEC unit. More importantly, the NN model can reproduce the evolution of the NWA effect during low solar activity, whereas the NTCM model cannot reproduce such effect in the TEC variation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1822
Author(s):  
Eren Erdogan ◽  
Michael Schmidt ◽  
Andreas Goss ◽  
Barbara Görres ◽  
Florian Seitz

The Kalman filter (KF) is widely applied in (ultra) rapid and (near) real-time ionosphere modeling to meet the demand on ionosphere products required in many applications extending from navigation and positioning to monitoring space weather events and naturals disasters. The requirement of a prior definition of the stochastic models attached to the measurements and the dynamic models of the KF is a drawback associated with its standard implementation since model uncertainties can exhibit temporal variations or the time span of a given test data set would not be large enough. Adaptive methods can mitigate these problems by tuning the stochastic model parameters during the filter run-time. Accordingly, one of the primary objectives of our study is to apply an adaptive KF based on variance component estimation to compute the global Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) of the ionosphere by assimilating different ionospheric GNSS measurements. Secondly, the derived VTEC representation is based on a series expansion in terms of compactly supported B-spline functions. We highlight the morphological similarity of the spatial distributions and the magnitudes between VTEC values and the corresponding estimated B-spline coefficients. This similarity allows for deducing physical interpretations from the coefficients. In this context, an empirical adaptive model to account for the dynamic model uncertainties, representing the temporal variations of VTEC errors, is developed in this work according to the structure of B-spline coefficients. For the validation, the differential slant total electron content (dSTEC) analysis and a comparison with Jason-2/3 altimetry data are performed. Assessments show that the quality of the VTEC products derived by the presented algorithm is in good agreement, or even more accurate, with the products provided by IGS ionosphere analysis centers within the selected periods in 2015 and 2017. Furthermore, we show that the presented approach can be applied to different ionosphere conditions ranging from very high to low solar activity without concerning time-variable model uncertainties, including measurement error and process noise of the KF because the associated covariance matrices are computed in a self-adaptive manner during run-time.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 1138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Zhang ◽  
Yibin Yao ◽  
Wenjie Peng ◽  
Lulu Shan ◽  
Yulin He ◽  
...  

The prevalence of real-time, low-cost, single-frequency, decimeter-level positioning has increased with the development of global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs). Ionospheric delay accounts for most errors in real-time single-frequency GNSS positioning. To eliminate ionospheric interference in real-time single-frequency precise point positioning (RT-SF-PPP), global ionospheric vertical total electron content (VTEC) product is designed in the next stage of the International GNSS Service (IGS) real-time service (RTS). In this study, real-time generation of a global ionospheric map (GIM) based on IGS RTS is proposed and assessed. There are three crucial steps in the process of generating a real-time global ionospheric map (RTGIM): estimating station differential code bias (DCB) using the precise point positioning (PPP) method, deriving slant total electron content (STEC) from PPP with raw observations, and modeling global vertical total electron content (VTEC). Experiments were carried out to validate the algorithm’s effectiveness. First, one month’s data from 16 globally distributed IGS stations were used to validate the performance of DCB estimation with the PPP method. Second, 30 IGS stations were used to verify the accuracy of static PPP with raw observations. Third, the modeling of residuals was assessed in high and quiet ionospheric activity periods. Afterwards, the quality of RTGIM products was assessed from two aspects: (1) comparison with the Center for Orbit Determination in Europe (CODE) global ionospheric map (GIM) products and (2) determination of the performance of RT-SF-PPP with the RTGIM. Experimental results show that DCB estimation using the PPP method can realize an average accuracy of 0.2 ns; static PPP with raw observations can achieve an accuracy of 0.7, 1.2, and 2.1 cm in the north, east, and up components, respectively. The average standard deviations (STDs) of the model residuals are 2.07 and 2.17 TEC units (TECU) for moderate and high ionospheric activity periods. Moreover, the average root-mean-square (RMS) error of RTGIM products is 2.4 TECU for the one-month moderate ionospheric period. Nevertheless, for the high ionospheric period, the RMS is greater than the RMS in the moderate period. A sub-meter-level horizontal accuracy and meter-level vertical accuracy can be achieved when the RTGIM is employed in RT-SF-PPP.


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