Comparison of observed hmF2 and IRI 2007 model with M(3000)F2 estimation of hmF2 at low solar activity for an equatorial station

This is to investigate ways of improving the Equatorial F2-layer peak heights estimated from M(3000)F2 ionosonde data measured using the Ionospheric Prediction Service (IPS-42) sounder at Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (Latitude +12.4°N, Longitude +1.5°W, Dip latitude +5.9°N) during a low solar activity year (1995). For this purpose, we have compared the observed h_mF2 (h_mF2_obs) deduced using an algorithm from scaled virtual heights of quiet day ionograms and the predicted h_mF2 values which is given by the IRI 2007 model (h_mF2_{IRI 2007}) with the ionosonde measured M(3000)F2 estimation of the h_mF2 values (h_mF2_est) respectively. The correlation coefficients R² for all the seasons were found to range from 0.259 to 0.692 for h_mF2_obs values, while it ranges from 0.551 to 0.875 for the h_mF2_{IRI 2007} values. During the nighttime, estimated h_mF2 (h_mF2_est) was found to be positively correlated with the h_mF2_obs values by the post-sunset peak representation which is also represented by the h_mF2_{IRI 2007} values. We also investigated the validity of the h_mF2_est values by finding the percentage deviations when compared with the h_mF2_obs and h_mF2_{IRI 2007}.