A New Tool for Modelling Scintillations Caused by Multi-scale Ionospheric Irregularities
Abstract
Over the last several decades, our use of GNSS and other satellites has increased dramatically. Ionospheric irregularities can regularly disrupt communications with these satellites through phase and amplitude scintillations of radio wave signals. At high latitudes, radio wave scintillations have been linked to polar cap patches and irregularities formed by the gradient drift (GD) instability. To study these high latitude effects on satellite signals, we have developed a new high performance Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) code for simulating radio wave propagation. We simulate ionospheric irregularities using Electrostatic Parallel PIC (EPPIC), a robust particle-in-cell simulator that has previously studied the GD instability. Plasma effects from EPPIC are coupled to the FDTD code to simulate effects of ionospheric irregularities on radio wave propagation. Here we present initial results from the coupled FDTD/EPPIC system used to simulate GNSS signals passing through multi-scale irregularities. This includes benchmarks for the coupled simulator and an attempt to quantify phase and amplitude scintillations caused by the GD instability.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2022
- Bibcode:
- 2022AGUFMSA35D1728G