3D geolocation of ionospheric plasma irregularities by combination of RO and ground-based GNSS measurements
Presenter:
Iurii Cherniak
COSMIC Program Office, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, USA
COSMIC Program Office, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, USA; Space Radio-Diagnostic Research Center, UWM, Olsztyn, Poland
Talk
Ionospheric irregularities lead to rapid fluctuations of amplitude and phase of the navigation radio signal. Features of the radio occultation (RO) geometry do not allow to estimate precisely location of the ionospheric irregularities along a ray path, but can resolute altitude distribution of irregularities with high precision. In order to solve this uncertainty, we apply two different approaches – a combination of LEO RO measurements with ground-based GNSS ROTI observation and back propagation (BP) technique.
For the areas with a high density of permanent GNSS stations, the ROTI-based approach for detection and geolocation irregularities demonstrates high performance in temporal and spatial domains. For the equatorial region, this approach allows to detect presence of medium scale plasma irregularities related with plasma bubbles development end evolution, and it is effective for regular (postsunset) equatorial plasma depletions as well as for storm-induced plasma bubbles.
The BP technique can be applied for an approximate localization of the ionospheric irregularities that cause scintillation of GNSS RO signals. The BP uses the RO signal’s phase and amplitude measured on receiver trajectory as the boundary condition for propagation of electromagnetic field back to transmitter.
We demonstrate that combination of space-borne RO and ground-based GNSS observations can allow assessing plasma irregularities parameters in geographical and altitudinal domain. These independent multi-instrumental measurements can potentially provide a consistent global view on the ionospheric density irregularity distribution and dynamics. Our results confirm a superb potency of the forthcoming COSMIC-2 mission equipped by both in-situ plasma probes and GNSS remote sensing payload, including RO instruments.
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