Enhanced Specification of the Equatorial Ionospheric Scintillation Environment with Satellite Radio Beacons
Abstract
Remote sensing of radio signals from low-Earth orbiting (LEO) satellites provides a wealth of information on the presence and location of disturbances in the equatorial ionosphere which result in scintillations. Results will be presented emphasizing the statistical improvements provided to existing ionospheric specification models with the assimilation of measurements from the Coherent Electromagnetic Radio Tomography (CERTO) beacon onboard the Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System satellite. Spatial and temporal enhancements to regional specifications from the Scintillation Network Decision Aid (SCINDA) model are analyzed in this study carried out under solar minimum conditions in the Pacific sector. In a subset of the study covering 68 days beginning at the peak of the scintillation season, more than 60% of the events in which scintillation was observed in the C/NOFS CERTO beacon data occurred during the absence of scintillation on SCINDA VHF and GPS receivers. Oftentimes, scintillation detected on the LEO beacon signal could be directly correlated with activity later observed on a SCINDA VHF link to a geosynchronous satellite providing a forecast capability of up to two hours. Numerous cases were noted, however, in which disturbances measured during C/NOFS overflights were not observed at all on SCINDA links due to geometry constraints. Conclusions from this investigation strongly support the inclusion of radio beacon data into regional ionospheric scintillation specification and forecast models.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010AGUFMSA51E..07C
- Keywords:
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- 2415 IONOSPHERE / Equatorial ionosphere;
- 2435 IONOSPHERE / Ionospheric disturbances;
- 2439 IONOSPHERE / Ionospheric irregularities