SOLAR TERMINATOR AND IONOSPHERIC PROPAGATION OF RADIO WAVES

The paper provides a review of studies devoted to the peculiarities of the propagation of radio waves in the ionosphere in the area of the solar terminator, which is the only global and regular source of acoustic-gravitational waves and other disturbances of the ionosphere. It describes the results of theoretical works devoted to the study of perturbations created by the solar terminator in the area of the difference in the intensity of solar radiation in the atmosphere. The paper gives a review of experimental studies of the effects created by the solar terminator in the entire thickness of the atmosphere. These effects, in particular, include the multipath propagation of radio waves, their phase variations, and variations in amplitudes during the propagation of radio waves in the area of the solar terminator. In the interests of science and practice, a number of problems have been proposed for the further study of wave perturbations arising as a result of the movement of the temperature gradient at sunrise and sunset hours.

On the Relationship between Low Latitude Scintillation Onset and Sunset Terminator over Africa

The solar terminator is a moving boundary between day-side and night-side regions on the Earth, which is a substantial source of perturbations in the ionosphere. In the vicinity of the solar terminator, essential parameters like S4 index measurements are widely analyzed in order to monitor and predict perturbations in the ionosphere. The utilization of the scintillation index S4 is a well-accepted approach to describe the amplitude/intensity fluctuation of a received signal, predominantly caused by small-scale irregularities of the ionospheric plasma. We report on the longitudinal daily and seasonal occurrence of GNSS signal scintillations, using the data derived from the GNSS stations in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, Lomé, Togo and Dakar, Senegal. The observed seasonal climatology of GNSS signal scintillations in equatorial Africa is adequately explained by the alignment of the solar terminator and local geomagnetic declination line. It should be pointed out that the strongest scintillations are most frequently observed during the time when the solar terminator is best aligned with the geomagnetic declination line. At all three stations, the comparison of computational and observational results indicated that the scintillation activity culminated around equinoxes in the years 2014, 2015 and 2016. Comparatively, the western equatorial Africa sector has the most intense, longest-lasting, and highest scintillation occurrence rate in equinoctial seasons in all three years. For the first time, we show that the seasonal variation of the scintillation peaks changes systematically from west to east at equatorial GNSS stations over Africa. A detailed analysis of the solar day–night terminator azimuth at ionospheric heights including the time equation shows that the scintillation intensity has a maximum if the azimuth of the terminator coincides with the declination line of the geomagnetic field. Due to the remarkable change of the declination by about 10° at the considered GNSS stations, the distance between scintillation peaks increases by 46 days when moving westward from the Bahir Dar to the Dakar GNSS station. The observations agree quite well with the computational results, thus confirming Tsunoda’s theory.

Observing wave packets generated by solar terminator in TEC during typhoons

In this work, we study ionospheric disturbances excited by the passage of the solar terminator (ST) during tropical cyclones, using total electron content (TEC) data. We have considered 16 intense tropical cyclones (typhoons) that acted in the northwest of the Pacific Ocean near the territory of Japan. We analyze two-dimensional distributions of the number of registered wave packets (WPs) depending on various parameters: local time, WP maximum amplitude, and distance to typhoon. It is shown that in most cases the maximum number of WPs is observed at a distance less than 500–1500 km from the typhoon center and near the time of evening solar terminator passage. For typhoons occurring during autumn periods, the maximum number of WPs is recorded at daytime, and, apparently, is not associated with ST. Distributions of the number of WPs depending on their amplitude have a similar form for all the cases considered, with a maximum of about 0.2 TECU. At the same time, for some typhoons there are a large number of WPs with amplitude up to 0.6–0.8 TECU, which is significantly higher than WP amplitudes under quiet conditions. We briefly discuss the mechanism of possible interaction between ionospheric disturbances caused by two different sources (tropical cyclones and ST passage).

Observing wave packets generated by solar terminator in TEC during typhoons

In this work, we study ionospheric disturbances excited by the passage of the solar terminator (ST) during tropical cyclone periods, using total electron content (TEC) data. We have considered 16 intense tropical cyclones (typhoons) that acted in the northwest of the Pacific Ocean near the territory of Japan. We analyze two-dimensional distributions of the number of registered wave packets (WPs) depending on various parameters: local time, maximum amplitude of packets, and distance to typhoon. It is shown that in most cases the maximum num-ber of WPs is observed at a distance less than 500–1500 km from the typhoon center and near the time of evening solar terminator passage. For typhoons occurring during autumn periods, the maximum number of WPs is recorded at daytime, and, apparently, is not associated with ST. Distributions of the number of WPs depending on their amplitude have a similar form for all the cases considered, with a maximum of about 0.2 TECU. At the same time, for some typhoons there are a large number of WPs with amplitude up to 0.6–0.8 TECU, which is significantly higher than WP amplitudes under quiet conditions. We briefly discuss the mechanism of possible interaction between ionospheric disturbances caused by two different sources (tropical cyclones and ST passage).