Identification

Title

Large-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances origin and propagation: Case study of the December 2015 geomagnetic storm

Abstract

We investigate the origin, occurrence, and propagation of large-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (LSTIDs) over the European region during the 19-21 December 2015 geomagnetic storm. Analysis of the total electron content (TEC) perturbation component is supported by the ground-based Global Positioning System (GPS) and GLONASS (In Russian: GLObalnaya NAvigazionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema) observations. The high spatial-temporal resolution mapping approach provides a very detailed specification of the ionospheric small- to large-scale disturbances associated with two major sources of the LSTIDs generation: the solar terminator passage during the quiet time and auroral activity caused by auroral particle precipitation and field-aligned currents (FACs) intensification during geomagnetic disturbances. For the first time, the joint analysis of the ionospheric plasma irregularities, FACs, and LSTIDs reveals that a zone with the intense FACs and ionospheric irregularities occurred at the same region that represent the most probable source of LSTIDs excitation. During the main phase of the storm, the LSTIDs propagated equatorward from European high latitudes to middle latitudes (35-40 degrees N) with the horizontal velocities of similar to 700-800m/s. The LSTIDs as deduced from the TEC-disturbed component had a much larger magnitude and propagate much longer distances during the daytime (sunlit part) than in the night. We found that an equatorward expansion of the strong ionospheric irregularities zone and an increase of the FACs magnitude led to a simultaneous intensification of the LSTIDs occurrence at high latitudes. The GPS ROTI (rate of TEC index) technique, a sensitive one for detection of the rapid ionospheric gradients and irregularities, could not recognize any signatures of the TIDs structures.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d741710s

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2018-09-14T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact