Identification

Title

Underutilized spaceborne GPS observations for space weather monitoring

Abstract

Many of currently operated low Earth orbit satellites, in particular Earth observing meteorological missions, are equipped with dual-frequency Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers with a zenith-looking antenna for tasks of precise orbit determination and timing. The already existed databases with accumulated raw GPS measurements, as a by-product of satellite missions, can arouse specific interest for ionospheric and space weather community too. We demonstrate potential possibilities and advantages of involving underutilized spaceborne GPS measurements for Space Weather activity monitoring by specification of storm-induced ionospheric plasma density irregularities at different altitudinal domain of the topside ionosphere. We have analyzed a dynamical response of the high-latitude topside ionosphere to the intense geomagnetic storm of 19-21 December 2015 using up-looking GPS measurements on board Swarm and Meteorological Operational satellite (MetOp) missions, flying at altitudes of similar to 500 km and similar to 835 km, respectively. For the first time, GPS observations on board the meteorological mission MetOp were used to reveal an occurrence of plasma irregularities at altitudes above 835 km. Our results demonstrate that during strong geomagnetic storms the intense plasma density irregularities can occur in the topside ionosphere near similar to 500 km altitude and can be still persisted above 835 km. Joint analysis of the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network global convection patterns, ground-based GPS total electron content (TEC) observations, and MetOp-derived topside TEC observations confirmed that plasma irregularities above similar to 835 km coincided with the plasmaspheric/magnetospheric part of the storm-enhanced density and the polar tongue of ionization structures, which is the first direct observation of the storm-enhanced density/tongue of ionization structure in the plasmaspheric TEC.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7d50qqp

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

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South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2018-04-01T00:00:00Z

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