Identification

Title

Daytime climatology of ionospheric NmF₂ and hmF₂ from COSMIC data

Abstract

Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC) data were analyzed to study the climatological variations of the F₂ region ionosphere. A 30 day running median was applied to the daily medians of each geomagnetic latitude bin (10⁰) to remove the short-term variability of the data. This permitted a better description of the long-term daytime climatology across the most recent solar minimum to be obtained. Several significant features appeared in this climatology: 1) low-latitude NmF₂ was dominated by the semi-annual anomaly, the equatorial anomaly and the annual asymmetry (anomaly); 2) Semi-annual and annual anomalies extended into the middle latitudes; 3) this extension into the middle latitudes appears to be dependent on variations of solar radiation over the solar cycle, as the variations did not reach as far poleward in 2008 as they did in 2010; 4) The second equinoctial maximum is not centered on the September equinox, but occurred in October; 5) there is an annual variation at high latitudes in which maximum values of NmF₂ occur in summer - there is no indication of a winter anomaly and, in fact, when hemispheres are compared, maximum NmF2 at middle latitudes always occurs in the summer hemisphere rather than the winter one; 6) the highest values of hmF₂ at low latitudes occur on the summer side of the magnetic equator throughout the four year period, probably resulting from winds blowing from the summer to the winter; 7) minimum values of hmF₂ at middle latitudes occur in winter, when hmF₂ is typically 30 to 50 km lower than it is in summer; 8) elevated hmF₂ also occurs in summer at high latitudes, with a distinct seasonal and hemispheric asymmetry.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7hq40ph

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

2012-09-01T00:00:00Z

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