Identification of scintillation signatures on GPS signals originating from plasma structures detected with EISCAT incoherent scatter radar along the same line of sight

Forte, Biagio; Coleman, Christopher John; Skone, S.; Häggström, Ingemar; Mitchell, Cathryn N.; Dalt, F. Da; Panicciari, T.; Kinrade, Joe; Bust, G. S.

doi:10.1002/2016ja023271

Cited by 29 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(85 reference statements)

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“…Item 1 agrees with a case study of Forte et al [, Conclusions] in that F region plasma density perturbations have two‐dimensional surface structures. Note also that “ground‐based” GNSS receivers at auroral latitudes may also observe enhanced phase scintillations when the LOS is aligned with the L shell: but the effect is not conspicuous [ Forte and Radicella , ].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Morphology of high‐latitude plasma density perturbations as deduced from the total electron content measurements onboard the Swarm constellation

et al. 2017

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In this study, we investigate the climatology of high‐latitude total electron content (TEC) variations as observed by the dual‐frequency Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers onboard the Swarm satellite constellation. The distribution of TEC perturbations as a function of geographic/magnetic coordinates and seasons reasonably agrees with that of the Challenging Minisatellite Payload observations published earlier. Categorizing the high‐latitude TEC perturbations according to line‐of‐sight directions between Swarm and GNSS satellites, we can deduce their morphology with respect to the geomagnetic field lines. In the Northern Hemisphere, the perturbation shapes are mostly aligned with the L shell surface, and this anisotropy is strongest in the nightside auroral (substorm) and subauroral regions and weakest in the central polar cap. The results are consistent with the well‐known two‐cell plasma convection pattern of the high‐latitude ionosphere, which is approximately aligned with L shells at auroral regions and crossing different L shells for a significant part of the polar cap. In the Southern Hemisphere, the perturbation structures exhibit noticeable misalignment to the local L shells. Here the direction toward the Sun has an additional influence on the plasma structure, which we attribute to photoionization effects. The larger offset between geographic and geomagnetic poles in the south than in the north is responsible for the hemispheric difference.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Morphology of high‐latitude plasma density perturbations as deduced from the total electron content measurements onboard the Swarm constellation

et al. 2017

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“…Many characteristics of scintillation are well-studied [1,7,11,28,8,20,17,44]. It has been shown that scintillation activity varies with operating frequency, local time, season, geomagnetic activity level(planetary K-index, K p ), and the 11-year solar cycle [46,29,38,7,28,20].…”

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confidence: 99%

Methodology to estimate ionospheric scintillation risk maps and their contribution to position dilution of precision on the ground

Koulouri

Smith

Vani

et al. 2020

J Geod

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Satellite-based communications, navigation systems and many scientific instruments rely on observations of trans-ionospheric signals. The quality of these signals can be deteriorated by ionospheric scintillation which can have detrimental effects on the mentioned applications. Therefore, monitoring of ionospheric scintillation and quantifying its effect on the ground are of significant interest. In this work, we develop a methodology which estimates the scintillation induced ionospheric uncertainties in the sky and translates their impact to the end-users on the ground. First, by using the risk concept from decision theory and by exploiting the intensity and duration of scintillation events (as measured by the S 4 index), we estimate ionospheric risk maps that could readily give an initial impression on the effects of scintillation on the satellite-receiver communication. However, to better understand the influence of scintillation on the positioning accuracy on the ground, we formulate a new weighted dilution of precision (WPDOP) measure that incorporates the ionospheric scintillation risks as weighting factors for the given satellite-receiver constellations. These weights depend implicitly on scintillation intensity and duration thresholds which can be specified by the end-user based on the sensitivity of the application, for example. We demonstrate our methodology by using scintillation data from South America, and produce ionospheric risk maps which illustrate broad scintillation activity, especially at the equatorial anomaly. Moreover, we construct ground maps of WPDOP over a grid of hypothetical receivers which reveal that ionospheric scintillation can also affect such regions of the continent that are not exactly under the observed ionospheric scintillation structures. Particularly, this is evident in cases when only the Global Positioning System (GPS) is available.

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“…However, to illustrate the utility of the IPE parameters for quantitative structure analysis, Figure 8 shows a color-coded display of the segment CsdB estimates plotted at the 350-km path intercept point. The results provide better structure definition than the S4 or rms phase measures typically used, for example, in the extensive study by Forte et al (2016).…”

Section: Stochastic Tec Diagnostic Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Stochastic TEC Structure Characterization

et al. 2019

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The global navigation satellite systems provide high-quality total electron content (TEC) measurements that are used routinely for ionospheric diagnostics. Large-scale TEC structure is a critical input for maintaining global ionospheric models. However, residual stochastic TEC structure is typically discarded as a phase-scintillation-induced error. In this paper we show that the phase-scintillation errors are a negligibly small fraction of the stochastic TEC component for most global navigation satellite system operating conditions. With three-frequency GPS satellite measurements, two independent TEC measurements can be compared to bound the scintillation-induced errors. Data analysis and simulations show that scintillation-induced errors are a small fraction of one TEC unit as long as the lower contributing frequency S4 index is less than 0.5. To the extent that scintillation-induced errors are negligible, spectral analysis of stochastic TEC provides a direct measure of path-integrated structure. Irregularity parameter estimation can be used to estimate power law parameters, which in turn can be interpreted with a new global ionospheric structure model. We present a summary analysis of month-long series of continuous measurements at Poker Flat, Alaska. The analysis confirms the generally accepted single power law model for high-latitude structure. A small fraction of the measurements indicate an outer-scale transition at approximately 17 km. The general pattern of the structure occurrence is consistent with auroral-zone activity.

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Identification of scintillation signatures on GPS signals originating from plasma structures detected with EISCAT incoherent scatter radar along the same line of sight

Cited by 29 publications

References 48 publications

Morphology of high‐latitude plasma density perturbations as deduced from the total electron content measurements onboard the Swarm constellation

Morphology of high‐latitude plasma density perturbations as deduced from the total electron content measurements onboard the Swarm constellation

Methodology to estimate ionospheric scintillation risk maps and their contribution to position dilution of precision on the ground

Stochastic TEC Structure Characterization

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