Atmospheric refraction of radio waves on occultation satellite-to-satellite paths

Pavel’ev, A. A.; Matyugov, S. S.; Pavelev, A. G.; Yakovlev, O. I.

doi:10.1134/s1064226912060083

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The success of these missions demonstrated that the RO technique is a powerful remote sensing tool for obtaining key vertical profiles of bending angle, refractivity, temperature, pressure and water vapour in the atmosphere and electron density in ionosphere with global coverage, high spatial and temporal resolution (Zhang et al, 2013). Explicit analysis of experimental data of LEO missions introduced important contributions in the following areas: (i) the theory of radio wave propagation (Gorbunov and Gurvich, 1998a;Gorbunov et al, 2002;Benzon et al, 2003;Gorbunov and Lauritsen, 2004;Gorbunov and Kirchengast, 2005;Pavelyev et al, 2004Pavelyev et al, , 2010a; (ii) climate changes detection (Kirchengast et al, 2000;Steiner et al, 2001;Foelsche et al, 2008); (iii) space weather effects and ionosphere monitoring (Rius et al, 1998;Jakowski et al, 2004;Wickert et al, 2004;Arras et al, 2008Arras et al, , 2010; (iv) deriving new radio-holographic methods of the RO remote sensing (Karayel and Hinson, 1997;Mortensen and Hoeg, 1998;Pavelyev, 1998;Gorbunov and Gurvich, 1998b;Mortensen et al, 1999;Hocke et al, 1999;Sokolovskiy, 2000;Sokolovskiy et al, 2002;Gorbunov, 2002a, b;Gorbunov et al, 1996Gorbunov et al, , 2002Gorbunov et al, , 2010Igarashi et al, 2000;Jensen et al, 2003Jensen et al, , 2004Pavelyev et al, 2002Pavelyev et al, , 2004Pavelyev et al, , 2010a…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of locality principle to radio occultation studies of the Earth's atmosphere and ionosphere

Liou¹,

Matyugov²,

Pavelyev³

et al. 2015

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. A new formulation of previously introduced principle of locality is presented. The principle can be applied for modernization of the radio occultation (RO) remote sensing of the atmospheres and ionospheres of the Earth and planets. The principle states that significant contributions to variations of the amplitude and phase of the radio waves passing through a layered medium are connected with influence of the vicinities of tangential points where the refractivity gradient is perpendicular to the radio ray trajectory. The RO method assumes spherical symmetry of the investigated medium. In this case if location of a tangent point relative to the spherical symmetry center is known, the derivatives on time of the RO signal phase and Doppler frequency variations can be recalculated into the refractive attenuation. Several important findings are consequences of the locality principle: (i) if position of the center of symmetry is known, the total absorption along the ray path can be determined at a single frequency, (ii) in the case of low absorption the height, displacement from the radio ray perigee, and tilt of the inclined ionospheric (atmospheric) layers can be evaluated, (iii) the contributions of the layered and irregular structures in the RO signal can be separated and parameters of layers and turbulence can be measured at a single frequency using joint analysis of the amplitude and phase variations. Specially for the Earth's troposphere, the altitude distributions of the weak total absorption (about of 1–4 db) of the radio waves at GPS frequencies corresponding to possible influence of the oxygen and water vapor can be measured with accuracy of about 0.1 db at a single frequency. According with the locality principle, a new index of ionospheric activity is introduced. This index is measured from the phase variations of radio waves passing through the ionosphere. Its high correlation with S4 scintillation index is established. This correlation indicates the significant influence of locally spherical symmetric ionospheric layers on variations of the phase and amplitude of the RO signal passing through transionospheric communication links. Obtained results expand the applicable domain of the RO method as a powerful remote sensing technique for geophysical and meteorological research.

show abstract