The influence of space weather on ionospheric total electron content during the 23rd solar cycle

Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate

Eric Pottiaux¹  Quentin Baire¹  Pascale Defraigne¹  Jean-Marie Chevalier¹  Juliette Legrand¹  Carine Bruyninx¹  Ioanna Tsagouri²  Nicolas Bergeot¹ 

[1] Royal Observatory of Belgium,3 avenue Circulaire,1180 Brussels,Belgium;Institute for Space Applications and Remote Sensing, National Observatory of Athens,15236 Mount Penteli,Greece

关键词: storm;    climate;    modelling;    ionosphere (general);    total electron content;   

Others  :  800674
DOI  :  doi:10.1051/swsc/2013047

 received in 2013-03-06, accepted in 2013-07-03,  发布年份 2013

【 摘 要 】

This paper presents a new empirical model for predicting the daily mean ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) at a given latitude from only one solar index as input. For the development of the model we take advantage of the availability of 15 years of global GNSS-based TEC information and solar indices (Sunspot Number, F10.7 and derived F10.7P) including the 23rd solar cycle. Among all the tests, our preferred ionospheric climatological model to predict daily mean TEC presents yearly median differences with observed values of 1.4 ± 0.9 TECu (11.5 ± 2.9% for the relative differences) with no significant degradation during the different phases of the solar cycle. To realize this empirical model we used a least-square adjustment with (1) a combination of linear, annual and semi-annual terms between the TEC and F10.7P; (2) a discretization with respect to the phases of the solar cycle. The main differences between the modelled and the observed TEC occur during identified geomagnetic storms: the maximum differences (−3.2 ± 1.5 TECu) and relative differences (−19.6 ± 15.0%) occur one day after the storm onset. The typical time to retrieve the pre-storm conditions is 3–4 days after the onset. These results show a global picture of the effect of extreme Space Weather events on the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

【 授权许可】

   
© N. Bergeot et al., Published by EDP Sciences 2013

【 图 表 】

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