Using new lightning-derived vertical total electron content data for global ionospheric observations

A newly-released global gridded VTEC dataset, provided by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is derived from very-high frequency (VHF; 30-300 MHz) broadband radio-frequency (RF) measurements of lightning made by sensors on board Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. Because it is derived from lightning detections, this dataset provides measurements in regions that are not well covered by ground-based GPS measurements, such as over oceans and over central Africa. Furthermore, this technique uses a completely different methodology to determine TEC, the sources of errors are distinct from the typical ground-based GPS L-band (GHz) TEC measurements. In this talk we discuss the new dataset (LANL VTEC)s usefulness to the community, discuss the errors inherent in VHF TEC estimation due to ionospheric dispersion, and compare the LANL VTEC to community standard VTEC gridded products: Jet Propulsion Laboratorys Global Ionospheric Model (JPL GIM) and the CEDAR communitys Open Madrigal VTEC gridded measurements of L-band GNSS (global navigation satellite systems) TEC. We will present our observations on the differences and their impact on using the data.