Identification

Title

Statistical validation of ionospheric electron density profiles retrievals from GOES geosynchronous satellites

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss a novel retrieval of ionospheric electron density profiles using the Radio Occultation (RO) technique applied to measurements captured by the Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers onboard two Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES). The GOES satellites operate at similar to 35,800 km altitude and are primarily weather satellites that operationally contribute continuous remote-sensing data for real-time weather forecasting, as well as near-Earth environment monitoring and Sun observations. The GPS receivers onboard GOES-16 and GOES-17 satellites can track GPS signals propagated through the Earth's atmosphere, and although the receivers are primarily designed for navigation and station-keeping maneuvers, these GPS measurements that traverse the Earth's atmosphere can be used to retrieve the ionospheric electron density profiles. This process poses a range of technical challenges. GOES RO links are different from the traditional low Earth orbit (LEO) RO geometry since the receiver is located in an orbit that is higher in altitude than the GPS constellation of transmitters. Additionally, the GPS receivers onboard GOES satellites provide only single-frequency GPS L1 observations and have clocks much less stable than those typically used for RO measurements. The geographical distribution of the retrieved GEO-based RO profiles was found to be uniquely constrained and repeatable based on the relative geostationary fixed positions in the Earth-Centered Earth Fixed reference frame with respect to the GPS constellation orbiting at lower altitude, and significantly different from the coverage patterns of LEO-based RO missions. We demonstrate the successful application of the proposed RO profiling technique with a statistically significant set of GPS observations from GOES-16 and GOES-17 satellites over several years of data collection. This enabled us to retrieve more than 10,000 ionospheric electron density profiles with a maximum altitude of up to 1000-2000 km, much higher than any existing LEO-based RO mission. We demonstrate good performance of GEO-based RO measurements for properly specifying the vertical distribution of ionospheric plasma density by comparing the profiles dataset from the GOES RO experiment with independent reference observations - ground-based ionosondes and LEO-based RO missions, as well as model simulation results provided by the empirical International Reference Ionosphere model. Over multiple years of observations, statistical analysis of discrepancies between the ionospheric F2 layer peak parameters (peak density and height) derived from geosynchronous GOES observations and reference measurements was conducted. This analysis reveals a very good agreement between GOES RO electron density profiles and independent types of measurements in both the F2 peak and the profile shape.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7tx3kfw

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

2023-10-09T00:00:00Z

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