Recent Advances in Ionospheric Modeling Using the USU GAIM Data Assimilation Models

Details Recent Advances in Ionospheric Modeling Using the USU GAIM Data Assimilation Models Recent Advances in Ionospheric Modeling Using the USU GAIM Data Assimilation Models

Dec 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufmsm51a1313s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #SM51A-1313

Other

[2415] Ionosphere / Equatorial Ionosphere, [2443] Ionosphere / Midlatitude Ionosphere, [2447] Ionosphere / Modeling And Forecasting, [7900] Space Weather

Scientific paper

The ionospheric plasma distribution at low and mid latitudes has been shown to display both a background state (climatology) and a disturbed state (weather). Ionospheric climatology has been successfully modeled, but ionospheric weather has been much more difficult to model because the ionosphere can vary significantly on an hour-by-hour basis. Unfortunately, ionospheric weather can have detrimental effects on several human activities and systems, including high-frequency communications, over-the-horizon radars, and survey and navigation systems using Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. As shown by meteorologists and oceanographers, the most reliable weather models are physics-based, data-driven models that use Kalman filter or other data assimilation techniques. Since the state of a medium (ocean, lower atmosphere, ionosphere) is driven by complex and frequently nonlinear internal and external processes, it is not possible to accurately specify all of the drivers and initial conditions of the medium. Therefore physics-based models alone cannot provide reliable specifications and forecasts. In an effort to better understand the ionosphere and to mitigate its adverse effects on military and civilian operations, specification and forecast models are being developed that use state-of-the-art data assimilation techniques. Over the past decade, Utah State University (USU) has developed two data assimilation models for the ionosphere as part of the USU Global Assimilation of Ionospheric Measurements (GAIM) program and one of these models has been implemented at the Air Force Weather Agency for operational use. The USU-GAIM models are also being used for scientific studies, and this should lead to a dramatic advance in our understanding of ionospheric physics; similar to what occurred in meteorology and oceanography after the introduction of data assimilation models in those fields. Both USU-GAIM models are capable of assimilating data from a variety of data sources, including in situ electron densities from satellites, bottomside electron density profiles from ionosondes, total electron content (TEC) measurements between ground receivers and the GPS satellites, occultation data from satellite constellations, and ultraviolet emissions from the ionosphere measured by satellites. We will present the current status of the model development and discuss the employed data assimilation technique. Recent examples of the ionosphere specifications obtained from our model runs will be presented with an emphasis on the ionospheric plasma distribution during the current low solar activity conditions. Various comparisons with independent data will also be shown in an effort to validate the models.

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