Eyjafjallajökull Volcanic Ash 2010 Effects on GPS Positioning Performance in the Adriatic Sea Region

The Eyjafjallajökull volcanic ash crisis in 2010 temporarily suspended European air traffic operations, as the 39-day eruption caused widely dispersed ashes to enter the lower atmosphere. In this paper, we assessed the effects of this event on the ionosphere layer and, consequently, on GPS positioning. We collected and analysed the data from four IGS stations, nearest to the volcano, for the month of April 2010. We recorded Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) time series, analysed their dynamics, and compared them with the GPS positioning errors of a commercial-grade, un-aided, single-frequency GPS receiver (simulating the response of a mass-market GPS receiver). The geomagnetic indices during the time period show little geomagnetic disturbance, especially during the volcanic event. Our results show an enhancement in ionosphere error by up to 15% during the volcanic ash event and an enhanced variance in GPS position components errors. This study reveals the potential impact of the charged volcanic ash on single-frequency, unaided GPS positioning accuracy in the Adriatic Sea region and establishes a foundation for studying similar events in future.

Analysis of Ionospheric and Geomagnetic Response to the 2020 Patagonian Solar Eclipse

Total solar eclipses are unique opportunities to study how the ionospheric and external geomagnetic field responds to fast changes in the ionizing flux as the moon’s shadow travels through its path over the ionosphere at an average speed of 3,000 km/h. In this contribution, we describe our observing campaign in which we set up GNSS and geomagnetic stations at the city of Valcheta, Río Negro, Argentina (which was located right under the path of totality). We also describe the results obtained from the analysis of the combination of on-site data together with publicly available observations from geodetic and geomagnetic observatories. The large span in latitude of our data allowed us to analyze the different magnitudes of the drop in vertical total electron content (ΔVTEC) with varying occultation percentages. We found an expected reduction in this drop as we move away from totality path but we also detected a new increment in ΔVTEC as we got closer to Earth’s Magnetic Equator. We also compared our observations of the geomagnetic field variations with predictions that were based on the Ashour-Chapman model and we find an overall good agreement, although a ≈20 min delay with the eclipse maximum is evident beyond observing uncertainties. This suggests the presence of processes that delay the response of the lower ionosphere to the loss of the photoionization flux.

Validating the impact of various ionosphere correction on mid to long baselines and point positioning using GPS dual-frequency receivers

Due to the ionosphere delay, which has become the dominant GPS error source, it is crucial to remove the ionospheric effect before estimating point coordinates. Therefore, different agencies started to generate daily Global Ionosphere Maps (GIMs); the Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) values represented in GIMs produced by several providers can be used to remove the ionosphere error from observations. In this research, An analysis will be carried with three sources for VTEC maps produced by the Center for Orbit Determination in Europe (CODE), Regional TEC Mapping (RTM), and the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI). The evaluation is focused on the effects of a specific ionosphere GIM correction on the precise point positioning (PPP) solutions. Two networks were considered. The first network consists of seven Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers from (IGS) global stations. The selected test days are six days, three of them quiet, and three other days are stormy to check the influence of geomagnetic storms on relative kinematic positioning solutions. The second network is a regional network in Egypt. The results show that the calculated coordinates using the three VTEC map sources are far from each other on stormy days rather than on quiet days. Also, the standard deviation values are large on stormy days compared to those on quiet days. Using CODE and RTM IONEX file produces the most precise coordinates after that the values of IRI. The elimination of ionospheric biases over the estimated lengths of many baselines up to 1000 km has resulted in positive findings, which show the feasibility of the suggested assessment procedure.

Ionospheric perturbation during the South American total solar eclipse on 14th December 2020 revealed with the Chilean GPS eyeball

The influence of the South American total solar eclipse of 14th December 2020 on the ionosphere is studied by using the continuous Chilean Global Positioning System (GPS) sites across the totality path. The totality path with eclipse magnitude 1.012 passed through the Villarrica (Lon. 72.2308°W and Lat. 39.2820°S) in south Chile during 14:41:02.0 UTC to 17:30:58.1 UTC and maximum occurred ~ 16:03:49.5 UTC around the local noon. The vertical total electron content (VTEC) derived by GPS sites across the totality path for two PRN’s 29 and 31 show almost 20–40% of reduction with reference to ambient values. The percentage reduction was maximum close to totality site and decreases smoothly on both sides of totality sites. Interestingly, the atmospheric gravity waves (AGWs) with a period ~ 30–60 min obtained using wavelet analysis of VTEC timeseries show the presence of strong AGWs at the GPS sites located north of the totality line. But the AGWs do not show any significant effect on the VTEC values to these sites. Our analysis suggests, possibly an interplay between variability in the background plasma density and eclipse-generated AGWs induced plasma density perturbation could explain the observations.

The cooperative IGS RT-GIMs: a reliable estimation of the global ionospheric electron content distribution in real time

The Real-Time Working Group (RTWG) of the International GNSS Service (IGS) is dedicated to providing high-quality data and high-accuracy products for Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning, navigation, timing and Earth observations. As one part of real-time products, the IGS combined Real-Time Global Ionosphere Map (RT-GIM) has been generated by the real-time weighting of the RT-GIMs from IGS real-time ionosphere centers including the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and Wuhan University (WHU). The performance of global vertical total electron content (VTEC) representation in all of the RT-GIMs has been assessed by VTEC from Jason-3 altimeter for 3 months over oceans and dSTEC-GPS technique with 2 d observations over continental regions. According to the Jason-3 VTEC and dSTEC-GPS assessment, the real-time weighting technique is sensitive to the accuracy of RT-GIMs. Compared with the performance of post-processed rapid global ionosphere maps (GIMs) and IGS combined final GIM (igsg) during the testing period, the accuracy of UPC RT-GIM (after the improvement of the interpolation technique) and IGS combined RT-GIM (IRTG) is equivalent to the rapid GIMs and reaches around 2.7 and 3.0 TECU (TEC unit, 1016 el m−2) over oceans and continental regions, respectively. The accuracy of CAS RT-GIM and CNES RT-GIM is slightly worse than the rapid GIMs, while WHU RT-GIM requires a further upgrade to obtain similar performance. In addition, a strong response to the recent geomagnetic storms has been found in the global electron content (GEC) of IGS RT-GIMs (especially UPC RT-GIM and IGS combined RT-GIM). The IGS RT-GIMs turn out to be reliable sources of real-time global VTEC information and have great potential for real-time applications including range error correction for transionospheric radio signals, the monitoring of space weather, and detection of natural hazards on a global scale. All the IGS combined RT-GIMs generated and analyzed during the testing period are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5042622 (Liu et al., 2021b).

Pre-Earthquake Ionospheric Anomalies Associated with the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake of Nepal Detected by GPS-TEC Measurements

The present study analyses the variations in the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) prior to and during the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake in Nepal (Mw = 7.8) on 25 April 2015, utilising data from the widely distributed Global Positioning System (GPS) network. This study aimed to determine the association between ionospheric TEC anomalies and the occurrence of earthquakes. The finding shows that anomalous TEC changes occurred several days to a few hours prior to the major impending events. The results reveal that deviations in vertical total electron content (VTEC) at distant locations from the epicentre are less than those observed at the epicentre, implying that variation in ionospheric VTEC is nearly inversely proportional to the distance of GPS stations from the epicentre. In view of the solar-terrestrial environment, the pre-earthquake ionospheric anomalies could be associated with the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake. The VTEC anomaly was identified when it crosses the upper bound (UB) or lower bound (LB). The outcomes additionally show that TEC variation was dominant in the vicinity of the earthquake epicentre. We also observed contrast in TEC throughout the globe using global ionospheric maps at regular 2-hour UT intervals, the day before, during and after the earthquake. As a result, we observed that areas heavily influenced by TEC were found to be transposed from eastern sectors to western sectors through the equatorial plane. TEC Maps indicate that most of the Indian regions, Northern China, Nepal, Bhutan, were heavily affected, indicating the earthquake's onset influence on the day of the event. Furthermore, we examined the cross-correlation of the SGOC station's TEC with the rest of the stations and discovered that the correlation increased gradually with epicentral distance from the surrounding stations, which was an intriguing result.

Climatology of ionosphere over Nepal based on GPS total electron content data from 2008 to 2018

In this study, we analyse the climatology of ionosphere over Nepal based on GPS-derived vertical total electron content (VTEC) observed from four stations as defined in Table 1: KKN4 (27.80∘ N, 85.27∘ E), GRHI (27.95∘ N, 82.49∘ E), JMSM (28.80∘ N, 83.74∘ E) and DLPA (28.98∘ N, 82.81∘ E) during the years 2008 to 2018. The study illustrates the diurnal, monthly, annual, seasonal and solar cycle variations in VTEC during all times of solar cycle 24. The results clearly reveal the presence of equinoctial asymmetry in TEC, which is more pronounced in maximum phases of solar cycle in the year 2014 at KKN4 station, followed by descending, ascending and minimum phases. Diurnal variations in VTEC showed the short-lived day minimum which occurs between 05:00 to 06:00 LT (local time) at all the stations considered, with diurnal peaks between 12:00 and 15:00 LT. The maximum value of TEC is observed more often during the spring equinox than the autumn equinox, with a few asymmetries. Seasonal variation in TEC is observed to be a manifestation of variations in solar flux, particularly regarding the level of solar flux in consecutive solstices.

The Influence of Solar X-ray Flares on SAR Meteorology: The Determination of the Wet Component of the Tropospheric Phase Delay and Precipitable Water Vapor

In this work, we study the impact of high-energy radiation induced by solar X-ray flares on the determination of the temporal change in precipitable water vapor (ΔPWV) as estimated using the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) meteorology technique. As recent research shows, this radiation can significantly affect the ionospheric D-region and induces errors in the estimation of the total electron content (TEC) by the applied models. Consequently, these errors are reflected in the determination of the phase delay and in many different types of measurements and models, including calculations of meteorological parameters based on SAR observations. The goal of this study is to quantify the impact of solar X-ray flares on the estimation of ΔPWV and provide an estimate of errors induced if the vertical total electron content (VTEC) is obtained by single layer models (SLM) or multiple layer models (MLM) (these models do not include ionosphere properties below the altitude of 90 km as input parameters and cannot provide information about local disturbances in the D-region). The performed analysis is based on a known procedure for the determination of the D-region electron density (and, consequently, the vertical total electron content in the D-region (VTECD)) using ionospheric observations of very low frequency (VLF) radio waves. The main result indicates that if the D-region, perturbed by medium-sized and intense X-ray flares, is not modeled, errors occur in the determination of ΔPWV. This study emphasizes the need for improved MLMs for the estimation of the TEC, including observational data at D-region altitudes during medium-sized and intense X-ray flare events.

The cooperative IGS RT-GIMs: a global and accurate estimation of the ionospheric electron content distribution in real-time

The Real-Time Working Group (RTWG) of the International GNSS Service (IGS) is dedicated to providing high-quality data, high-accuracy products for Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning, navigation, timing, and Earth observations. As one part of real-time products, the IGS combined Real-Time Global Ionosphere Map (RT-GIM) has been generated by the real-time weighting of the RT-GIMs from IGS real-time ionosphere centers including the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), and Wuhan University (WHU). The performance of global Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) representation in all of the RT-GIMs has been assessed by VTEC from Jason3-altimeter during one month over oceans and dSTEC-GPS technique with 2-day observations over continental regions. According to the Jason3-VTEC and dSTEC-GPS assessment, the real-time weighting technique is sensitive to the accuracy of RT-GIMs. Compared with the performance of post-processed rapid Global Ionosphere Maps (GIMs) and IGS combined final GIM (igsg) during the testing period, the accuracy of UPC RT-GIM (after the transition of interpolation technique) and IGS combined RT-GIM (IRTG) is equivalent to the rapid GIMs and reaches around 2.7 and 3.0 TECU (TEC Unit, 1016 el/m2) over oceans and continental regions, respectively. The accuracy of CAS RT-GIM and CNES RT-GIM is slightly worse than the rapid GIMs, while WHU RT-GIM requires a further upgrade to obtain similar performance. In addition, the strong response to the recent geomagnetic storms has been found in the Global Electron Content (GEC) of IGS RT-GIMs (especially UPC RT-GIM and IGS combined RT-GIM). The IGS RT-GIMs turn out to be reliable sources of real-time global VTEC information and have great potential for real-time applications including range error correction for transionospheric radio signals (such as GNSS positioning, search and rescue, air traffic, radar altimetry, and radioastronomy), the monitoring of space weather (such as geomagnetic and ionospheric storms, ionospheric disturbance) and detection of natural hazards on a global scale (such as hurricanes/typhoons, ionospheric anomalies associated with earthquakes). All the IGS combined RT-GIMs generated and analyzed during the testing period are available at http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4651445 (Liu et al., 2021b).