High Latitude Ionospheric Phase Disturbance Classification: Refraction vs. Diffraction

This poster illustrates a statistical analysis of ionospheric phase disturbances observed at high latitudes. Ionospheric phase disturbance/scintillation refers to the random phase fluctuations of radio signals propagating through ionospheric irregularities, which may impact Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). In high latitudes, it is known that scintillation caused by refraction occurs orders of magnitude more frequently than scintillation caused by diffraction. Here, refraction refers to the index of a material (in this case, the material is typically an ionospheric plasma cloud) which describes how fast a radio wave travels through, whereas diffraction refers to the scattering of a wave. In this poster, we will be presenting 1) A classification method to automatically distinguish between scintillations caused by refraction and diffraction and 2) A comprehensive characterization of high latitude scintillations with a focus on the statistical comparison between refraction and diffraction. In this work, the receivers used are located in Alaska and Greenland, with data collected over the past 10 years.