Equatorial ionization anomaly

The paper presents a method for computing the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) using the combination of the phase and code measurements at the frequencies f1 and f2 of the global positioning system, and applies it to study the TEC variations and disturbances during the magnetic storm in March 2015 using GPS continuous data in the Southeast Asia region. The computation results show that the TEC values calculated by using the combination of phase and code measurements are less dispersed than the ones by using only the pseudo ranges. The magnetic storm whose the main phase was on the 17th March 2015, with the minimum value of the SYM/H index of-223 nT is the biggest during the 24th solar cycle. In the main phase, the crests of the equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) expanded poleward with large increases of TEC amplitudes, that provides evidence of the penetration of the magnetospheric eastward electric field into the ionosphere and of the enhancement of the plasma fountain effect associated with the upward plasma drifts. In the first day of the recovery phase, due to the effect of the ionospheric disturbance dynamo, the amplitude of northern crest decreased an amount of about 25% with respect to an undisturbed day, and this crest moved equatorward a distance of about 11 o , meanwhile the southern crest disappeared completely. In the main phase the ionospheric disturbances (scintillations) developed weakly, meanwhile in the first day of the recovery phase, they were inhibited nearly completely. During the storm time, in some days with low magnetic activity (Ap<~50 nT), the ionospheric disturbances in the local night-time were quite strong. The strong disturbance regions with ROTI > 0.5 concentrated near the crests of the EIA. The latitudinal-temporal TEC disturbance maps in these nights have been established. The morphology of these maps shows that the TEC disturbances are due to the medium-scale travelling ionospheric disturbances (MSTID) generated by acoustic-gravity waves in the northern crest region of the EIA after sunset moving equatorward with the velocity of about 210 m/s.

This study presents the continuous GPS network in Vietnam and the results of study on time variations of the total electron content (TEC) in the South East Asian equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) for the 2006-2013 period. In each year we observe a semiannual pattern of amplitude of the EIA crests with its maximum amplitude at equinox. In both hemispheres, the amplitude of the crest is larger in northern spring equinox than in autumn from 2006 to 2008 (descending phase of solar cycle) and smaller in spring than in autumn from 2009 to 2011 (increasing phase of solar cycle), from 2012-2013 (maximum period of solar cycle) the amplitudes of the crests in spring and autumn are equivalent. We also observe an asymmetry between the amplitude and the position of the two crests of ionization. There is a very high level of correlation between the amplitude of the TEC at the two crests and the sunspot number is approximately equal to 0.9. During the deep solar minimum 2008-2009, the amplitude of crests of ionization becomes small during several months in summer and winter (about 20 TECu). The results show that both crests move more significantly equatorward in winter than in other seasons and there is a tendency for both crests to appear earlier in winter and later in summer. In the solar minimum years, the amplitudes of the crests are minimal; the positions of the crests are nearer the magnetic equator and the crests appear earlier than in other years.

Observations and numerical simulations of the response of the thermosphere and ionosphere to “superstorms” illustrate that multiple processes are operating. The initial response at high latitude is thermospheric heating, thermal expansion, high-velocity winds, wave surges, the ...

The trans-ionospheric communications and navigations needs to realize the dynamics of low and equatorial region ionosphere on real time basis. For this purpose a chain of three coherent radio beacon (CRABEX) receivers, for ionospheric tomography, are installed over the Indian sector along a common meridian. In the present study data from above network of stations is used to study the latitudinal variations of ionospheric TEC (Total Electron Content) over the region. The result shows day-to-day variability in the growth and decay of equatorial anomaly including the nighttime enhancement of electron density over low latitude region. The observed results are also compared with TEC value derived from the PIM and IRI-2001 models. CRABEX receivers measure the differential Doppler phase and amplitudes of 150 and 400 MHz signals from Naval Ionospheric Measuring System (NIMS) satellites. The ionospheric TEC estimation depends on the measured phase difference and initial phase offset of two c...

The penetration of magnetospheric electric fields to the magnetic equator has been investigated for two intense magnetic storms that occurred on 31 March 2001 and 6 November 2001. The digital ground magnetic data from equatorial station Tirunelveli (TIR, 0.17°S geomagnetic latitude (GML)) and low-latitude station Alibag (ABG, 10.17°N GML) have been used to identify the storm time electrojet index, EEJ(Dis),