Computer Science – Performance
Scientific paper
Dec 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufmsm33a1562s&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #SM33A-1562
Computer Science
Performance
[2431] Ionosphere / Ionosphere/Magnetosphere Interactions, [2435] Ionosphere / Ionospheric Disturbances, [2439] Ionosphere / Ionospheric Irregularities, [7944] Space Weather / Ionospheric Effects On Radio Waves
Scientific paper
Under perturbed conditions caused by intense solar wind magnetosphere coupling, the ionosphere may become highly turbulent and irregularities, typically enhancements or depletions of the electron density embedded in the ambient ionosphere, can form. Such irregularities cause diffraction effects, mainly due to the random fluctuations of the refractive index of the ionosphere, on the satellites signals passing through them and consequent perturbations may cause GNSS navigation errors and outages, abruptly corrupting its performance. Due to the morphology of the geomagnetic field, whose lines are almost vertical at high latitude, polar areas are characterized by the presence of significant ionospheric irregularities having scale sizes ranging from hundreds of kilometers down to a few centimeters and with highly dynamic structures. The understanding of the effect of such phenomena is important, not only in preparation for the next solar cycle (24), whose maximum is expected in 2012, but also for a deeper comprehension of the dynamics of the high-latitude ionosphere. We analyze the fluctuations in the carrier frequency of the radio waves received on the ground, commonly referred to as ionospheric amplitude and phase scintillations, to investigate the physical processes causing them. The phase scintillations on GNSS signals are likely caused by ionospheric irregularities of scale size of hundreds of meters to few kilometers. The amplitude scintillations on GNSS signals are caused by ionospheric irregularities of scale size smaller than the Fresnel radius, which is of the order of hundreds of meters for GNSS signals, typically embedded into the patches. The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) and the Institute of Engineering Surveying and Space Geodesy (IESSG) of the University of Nottingham manage the same kind of GISTM (GPS Ionospheric Scintillation and TEC Monitor) receivers over the European high and mid latitude regions and over Antarctica. The GISTM receivers consist of NovAtel OEM4 dual-frequency receivers with special firmware specifically able to compute in near real time the amplitude and the phase scintillation from the GPS L1 frequency signals, and the ionospheric TEC (Total Electron Content) from the GPS L1 and L2 carrier phase signals. From this ground-based network, we are able to capture the dynamics of ionospheric plasma in a wide latitudinal range, from auroral to cusp/cap regions, considering the contribution of both hemispheres, in a bi-polar framework. The data collection started in 2001 and is still in progress. The results, obtained by statistically analyzing a large data sample over a wide period, show the effect of ionospheric disturbances on the GNSS signals, evidencing the different contributions of the auroral and the cusp/cap ionosphere and highlighting possible scintillation scenarios over polar regions.
Alfonsi Liliane
Aquino Marcio
de Franceschi Giorgiana
Dodson Alan
Mitchell Cathryn N.
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