GPS and Ionosphere
The Global Positioning System (GPS) constellation of satellites is revolutionizing the science and technology of the Earth's ionosphere.
Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Pi, X..
The Global Positioning System (GPS) constellation of satellites is revolutionizing the science and technology of the Earth's ionosphere.
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The ionospheric storm evolution process was monitored during the January 10, 1997 magnetic cloud event, through measurements of the inonospheric total electron content (TEC) from 150 GPS stations. The first significant response of the inonospheric TEC to the geomagnetic storm was at 0300 UT as an auroral/subauroral enhancement around the Alaskan evening sector.
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The global evolution of two major ionospheric storms, occurring on November 4, 1993 and November 26, 1994, respectively, is studied using measurements of total electron content (TEC) obtained from a worldwide network of ground-based GPS receivers.
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Ionospheric storm dynamics as a response to the geomagnetic storms is a very complicated global process involving many different mechanisms. Studying ionospheric storms will help us to understand the energy coupling process between the Sun and Earth and possibly also to effectively forecast space weather changes. Such a study requires a worldwide monitoring system. The worldwide GPS network, for the first time, makes near real-time global ionospheric TEC measurements a possibility.
A globally distributed network of dual-frequency GPS receivers currently exists and enables the monitoring of ionospheric total electron content (TEC) on global scales.
The solar wind interacts with the Earth's magnetosphere, eventually dissipating energy into the ionosphere and atmosphere. As a terminator, the ionosphere responds to magnetic storms, which is very important in understanding the energy coupling process between the Sun and the Earth and in forecasting space weather changes.The worldwide GPS network, for the first time, makes near real-time global ionospheric TEC measurements a possibility. Based on these measurements, global ionospheric TEC maps are generated with time resolution of from 5 minutes to hours. Using these maps, we can analyze the global evolution of ionospheric storms on temporal and spatial scales, which have been dificult to study before. We find that for certain types of storms (such as TID-driven), it is possible to identify them near onset and issue warning signals during the early stages. Main attention has been paid on northern hemispheric winter storms. Their common features and physical mechanisms are being investigated.
For the first time, measurements from the Global Positioning System (GPS) worldwide network are employed to study the global ionospheric total electron content(TEC) changes during a magnetic storm (November 26, 1994). These measurements are obtained from more than 60 world-wide GPS stations which continuously receive dual-frequency signals. Based on the delays of the signals, we have generated high resolution global ionospheric maps (GIM) of TEC at 15 minute intervals. Using a differential method comparing storm time maps with quiet time maps, we find that significant TEC increases (the positive effect ) are the major feature in the winter hemisphere during this storm (the maximum percent change relative to quiet times is about 150 percent).