High Latitude Scintillation and Auroral Activity
Abstract
Highly structured plasma density profiles in the ionosphere can cause amplitude and phase scintillation for radio frequency signals. This can affect satellite links and in particular can affect GPS location accuracy. The two most scintillation prone regions are at low and high latitudes. The latter is related to auroral activity. Typical measures used to correlate scintillation with auroral activity are global measures of geomagnetic activity inferred from perturbations in the Earth's magnetic field. However, scintillation intensity varies at spatial and temporal scales inaccessible to correlations with global indices.
In this study we investigate measures of auroral energy input derived from Aerospace airglow photometers at Poker Flat and Fort Yukon in Alaska. Ground based photometers, operated by Aerospace, measure auroral particle fluxes and particle energy. These data will be used to determine how auroral intensity and energetics are related to amplitude and phase scintillation at high latitudes. Photometer data is sampled at 10s intervals, allowing detailed correlation between observed scintillation and the temporal changes in auroral activity. Scintillation signatures will be derived from ground-based GPS TEC data. We will characterize scintillation occurrence in terms of the measures of auroral activity, including its temporal variations.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMSA33A..04G
- Keywords:
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- 0358 Thermosphere: energy deposition;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTUREDE: 3369 Thermospheric dynamics;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSESDE: 2407 Auroral ionosphere;
- IONOSPHEREDE: 2427 Ionosphere/atmosphere interactions;
- IONOSPHERE