Global ionospheric scintillations revealed by GPS radio occultation data with FY3C satellite before midnight during the March 2015 storm

Global observations of S4 amplitude scintillation index by the GPS Occultation Sounder (GNOS) on FengYun-3 C (FY3C) satellite reveal global dynamic patterns of a strong pre-midnight scintillations in F-region of the ionosphere during the St. Patrick’s Day geomagnetic super storm of 17–19 March 2015. The observed strong scintillations mainly occurred in the low latitudes, caused by equatorial plasma bubbles. During the main storm phase (March 17), the scintillations were first triggered in the New Zealand sector near 160°E longitudes, extending beyond 40°S dip latitude. They were also enhanced in the Indian sector, but significantly suppressed in East Asia near 120°E longitude and in Africa around 30°E longitude. During the initial recovery phase (March 18–19), the global scintillations were seldom observed in GNOS data. During the later recovery phase (after March 19), the scintillations recovered to the pre-storm level in Indian, African, and American sectors, but not in East Asian and any of Pacific sectors. These results closely correlate with observations of the density depletion structures by the Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) satellite, and ground-based instruments. Such consistency indicates reliability of our scintillation sensing approach even in a case-by-case comparison study. The prompt penetration electric field and disturbance dynamo electric field are suggested as the main factors that control the enhancement and inhibition of the scintillations during the storm, respectively.     

Ionospheric response of equatorial and low latitude F-region during the intense geomagnetic storm on 24–25 August 2005

In this investigation, we present and discuss the response of the ionospheric F-region in the South American and East Asian sectors during an intense geomagnetic storm in August 2005. The geomagnetic storm studied reached a minimum Dst of −216 nT at 12:00 UT on 24 August. In this work ionospheric sounding data obtained of 24, 25, and 26 August 2005 at Palmas (PAL; 10.2° S, 48.2° W; dip latitude 6.6° S), São José dos Campos (SJC, 23.2° S, 45.9° W; dip latitude 17.6° S), Brazil, Ho Chi Minh City, (HCM; 10.5° N, 106.3° E; dip latitude 2.9° N), Vietnam, Okinawa (OKI; 26.3° N, 127.8° E; dip latitude 21.2° N), Japan, are presented. Also, the GPS observations obtained at different stations in the equatorial and low-latitude regions in the Brazilian sector are presented. On the night of 24–25 August 2005, the h′F variations show traveling ionospheric disturbances associated with Joule heating in the auroral zone from SJC to PAL. The foF2 variations show a positive storm phase on the night of 24–25 August at PAL and SJC during the recovery phase. Also, the GPS-VTEC observations at several stations in the Brazilian sector show a fairly similar positive storm phase on 24 August. During the fast decrease of Dst (between 10:00 and 11:00 UT) on 24 August, there is a prompt penetration of electric field of magnetospheric origin that result in abrupt increase (∼12:00 UT) in foF2 at PAL, SJC (Brazil) and OKI (Japan) and in VTEC at IMPZ, BOMJ, PARA and SMAR (Brazil). OKI showed strong oscillations of the F-region on the night 24 August resulted to the propagation of traveling atmospheric disturbances (TADs) by Joule heating in the auroral region. These effects result a strong positive observed at OKI station. During the daytime on 25 August, in the recovery phase, the foF2 observations showed positive ionospheric storm at HCM station. Some differences in the latitudinal response of the F-region is also observed in the South American and East Asian sectors.     

中等磁暴太阳周分布的统计研究

依据实际观测的中等磁暴数据,统计分析了中等磁暴的太阳周分布.分析结果表明,在一个太阳活动周内,每年中等磁暴随时间的变化出现多个峰值,其中,最大峰值均出现在太阳活动周的下降段,即中等磁暴的峰值比太阳黑子数平滑年均值的峰值要滞后,滞后的时间为2～3年.超过70%的中等磁暴出现在太阳活动周的下降段,这表明绝大多数中等磁暴出现在太阳活动周的下降段.通过对中等磁暴平滑月均值与太阳黑子数平滑月均值相位差的计算分析发现,中等磁暴峰值出现的时间比太阳黑子数峰值出现的时间要滞后,不同太阳活动周中等磁暴峰值出现的时间与太阳黑子数峰值时间滞后的程度不同.      

Systematic examination of the geomagnetic storm sudden commencement using multi resolution analysis

Geomagnetic storm sudden commencements (SSC) contain a wealth of information which is useful in many applications. It is important to point out that the SSCs used in this study are sampled at the rate of one sample per second in order get use of such high resolution data. In this paper, two studies are made on the geomagnetic SSC and an SSC onset automatic detection algorithm is introduced. The first study is about finding the relationship between the SSC rise time and its amplitude. Where it is found that there is a positive correlation between the amplitude and the amplitude gradient which is the amplitude divided by rise time. The second study is checking the spectrum of the SSC, starting from its onset until the end of the SSC rise time. This check had proved that the SSC contains both low and high frequency regions. This led us to introduce a new term, namely the SSC variation rate (VR). This VR is defined as the maximum rate of change of the field in the higher-frequency region of the SSC. These two studies were the guide to build an SSC automatic detector of one sample per second data using multi resolution analysis (MRA) of the discrete wavelet transform (DWT). The data set contains 134 SSCs with different VRs that were collected from the Circum-pan Pacific Magnetometer Network (CPMN). It is found that the standard deviation of the detection error is 41 s and that the average error is 9 s. From the calculated error distribution function, it is found that the detection error is within the range of −1.5 to 3 min. The detection process, as will be shown in the article, takes 70 s for one station and 3 min if the decision is related to the detection(s) of other stations. These results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm over other algorithms in which the detection error ranges between −8 and 5 min and the detection process takes 2–10 min. In addition to being faster and more accurate than the other algorithms, the proposed algorithm is the first algorithm that automatically detects the SSC onset times from high-resolution data unlike previous studies that focused on determining the SSC times automatically using one-minute resolution data.     

磁暴对海南地区电离层扩展F的影响

利用2002年2月至2007年12月海南地区DPS-4测高仪观测数据, 用统计分析方法研究了磁暴对电离层扩展F的影响. 结果认为磁暴从整体上抑制了扩展F现象的发生. 但若把扩展F分为不同类型, 则结果却有所不同. 对于频率型(FSF), 在2002年和2003年磁暴对其有促发作用, 在2004---2007年有抑制作用; 对于区域型(RSF), 在2002---2005年磁暴对其有抑制作用, 在2006年和2007年, 对其有弱促发作用; 对于混合型(MSF), 在2002年磁暴对其有抑制作用, 在2003年和2004年有促发作用, 从2005年开始, 磁暴对其有抑制作用; 对于强区域型 (SSF), 在2002---2004年磁暴对其有抑制作用, 在2005年和2006年有促发作用, 2007年有弱抑制作用.      

不同强度磁暴期间热层大气密度响应特征分析

利用CHAMP卫星数据,对2002-2008年12个不同强度磁暴事件期间的热层大气密度变化特征进行分析,并研究对应磁暴期间大气模式NRLMSISE-00分布特征.结果表明,大磁暴期间日侧大气密度峰值从高纬到低纬的时间延迟为2h,中小磁暴期间的延迟时间为3～4h;春秋季暴时大气密度分布基本呈南北对称分布,而夏冬季大气密度的分布是夏半球大于冬半球,春秋季暴时大气密度大于夏冬季;NRLMSISE-00大气模式得到的热层大气密度很好的体现了半球分布以及季节分布的特征,但模式模拟结果偏小;Dst指数峰值比ap指数峰值更能反应大气密度的变化情况.      

Highlights about the performances of storm-time TEC modelling techniques for low/equatorial and mid-latitude locations

A statistical evaluation of storm-time total electron content (TEC) modelling techniques over various latitudes of the African sector and surrounding areas is presented. The source of observational TEC data used in this study is the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), specifically the Global Positioning Systems (GPS) receiver networks. For each selected receiver station, three different storm-time models based on empirical orthogonal functions (EOF) analysis, non-linear regression analysis (NLRA) and Artificial neural networks (ANN), were implemented. Storm-time GPS TEC data used for both development and validation of the models was selected based on the storm criterion of $\mathit{Dst}?-50$ nT or $K_p?4$ to take into account both coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and co-rotating interaction regions (CIRs) driven storms, respectively. To make an independent test of the models, storm periods considered for validation were excluded from datasets used during the implementation of the models and results are compared with observations, monthly median values, and International Reference Ionosphere (IRI-2016) predictions. Considering GPS TEC as reference, a statistical analysis performed over six storm periods reserved for validation revealed that ANN model is about 10%, 26%, and 58% more accurate than EOF, NLRA, and IRI models, respectively. It was further found that, EOF model performs 15%, and 44% better than NLRA, and IRI models, respectively, while NLRA is 25% better than IRI. On the other hand, results are also discussed referring to the background ionosphere represented by monthly median TEC (MM TEC) and statistics are provided. Moreover, strengths and weaknesses of each model are highlighted.     

Study of maximum electron density NmF2 at Karachi and Islamabad during solar minimum (1996) and solar maximum (2000) and its comparison with IRI

The monthly hourly medians of maximum electron density, N_mF₂, at two Pakistani ionospheric stations, Karachi and Islamabad, have been determined for solar minimum (1996) and solar maximum (2000) and compared with IRI predictions using the URSI coefficients. At night and pre-noon period the N_mF₂ values at both stations are almost equal during the 2 years. However, at post-noon the values at Karachi are considerably larger than those at Islamabad due to the equatorial or geomagnetic anomaly. Karachi (geomag. coord. 16.44°N, 139.08°E) lies near the region of the equatorial anomaly (+20 and −20 geomagnetic latitude), so most of the N_mF₂ values at Karachi are larger than those at Islamabad (geomag. coord. 24.46°N, 145.67°E). The maximum monthly values of N_mF₂ show a semi-annual variation at Karachi and Islamabad both during 1996 and 2000 as predicted by IRI.     

The geomagnetic solar flare effect identified by SIIG as an indicator of a solar flare observed by GOES satellites

This paper studies the efficiency of geomagnetic solar flare effects (gsfe) in X solar flare detection; so during the period 1999–2007 a comparison between solar flare (sf) observed by satellites of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) programme and gsfe published by the Service International des Indices Geomagnetiques (SIIG) is made.     

SABRE雷达及其观测的Pc5地磁脉动Ⅰ.统计分析结果

本文简要介绍了相干散射雷达SABRE及其观测Pc5地磁脉动的工作原理。1985—1989年观测数据的统计分析结果表明,相位向极传播脉动事件的出现率峰值在当地时间午夜附近,而向赤道传播事件的出现率峰值则在18:00LT左右。文中给出了上述两类脉动事件出现率的日变化,与地磁活动的相关,与背景电离层等离子体对流特性的关系等统计分析结果。