Super‐medium‐scale traveling ionospheric disturbance observed at midlatitude during the geomagnetic storm on 10 November 2004

Abstract

[1] Medium-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs) whose peak-to-peak amplitude was larger than 20 TECU (=10 16 el/m 2 ) were observed at midlatitude during the geomagnetic storm on 10 November 2004. This amplitude was more than 10 times larger than that of the average MSTID. High-resolution data of the GPS Earth Observation Network (GEONET) clarified the characteristic of the total electron content (TEC) disturbances over Japan on 10 November 2004. The disturbances started around 1000 UT in the central part of Japan. The maximum of TEC temporal change was 7.2 TECU in 30 s. The disturbances had several wave fronts which extended from northwest to southeast and propagated from northeast to southwest. TEC data around Japan revealed that the disturbances were mainly observed from 18°N/S to 34°N/S of the geomagnetic latitude in the both hemispheres. Since those characteristics were similar to those of MSTIDs in spite of the unusual large amplitude, the MSTIDs are referred as ''super-MSTIDs'' in this paper. TEC variations of the super-MSTIDs were also observed at 460 km altitude by the GRACE satellite. The ion density fluctuations of the super-MSTIDs were observed in situ by the CHAMP and DMSP-F15 satellites, which flew at 360 km and 850 km, respectively. It is found that the plasma density variations of the super-MSTIDs occurred mainly above 360 km altitude. The characteristics that distinguish the event from plasma bubbles are its successive wave fronts, constant northwest-southeast direction along which the wave fronts stretched, and late local time of the occurrence. It is found that the uplift of the ionosphere around sunset excited the super-MSTIDs at midlatitudes. The uplift was attributed to the strong eastward electric field during the geomagnetic storm.

GBAS ionospheric threat model assessment for category I operation in the Korean region

“…The ionospheric irregularities accompanied by the MSTIDs were observed on November 10, 2014, in the Korean region and showed large variation in response to the movement and intensity change of the MSTIDs (Yoon and Lee 2014). Similar MSTID events were observed in the central part of Japan on the same day using GPS Earth Observation Network (GENET) data (Sahai et al 2009;Nishioka et al 2009). We also investigated data that indicated the largest-magnitude ionospheric gradient observed during the secondseverest ionospheric event.…”

“…9. The geomagnetic condition was extreme in the early part of November 2004, and nighttime MediumScale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances (MSTIDs) were observed in East Asia (Sahai et al 2009;Nishioka et al 2009). The ionospheric irregularities accompanied by the MSTIDs were observed on November 10, 2014, in the Korean region and showed large variation in response to the movement and intensity change of the MSTIDs (Yoon and Lee 2014).…”

Storm‐induced plasma stream in the low‐latitude to midlatitude ionosphere

“…Another severe low‐latitude ionospheric disturbance was observed at the Western Pacific longitudes on 10 November 2004. There were similarities with the event on 8 November such that TEC was largely enhanced after sunset during the early recovery phase of another significant magnetic storm with a maximum D s t value of −263 nT [ Nishioka et al , ]. Unlike the event on 8 November, the ionosphere on 10 November was largely structured.…”

GPS and GLONASS observations of large‐scale traveling ionospheric disturbances during the 2015 St. Patrick's Day storm

“…Occurrence of LSTIDs is generally related to geomagnetic activity, and they travel from the polar regions toward the equator, while MSTIDs are typically observed at midlatitudes during both quiet and disturbed conditions. Further, MSTID and LSTID characteristics were investigated using dense GPS receiver networks in Japan [e.g., Saito et al, 2001;Shiokawa et al, 2002;Tsugawa et al, 2003;Tsugawa and Saito, 2004;Nishioka et al, 2009;Hayashi et al, 2010], North America [e.g., Nicolls et al, 2004;Tsugawa et al, 2007;Kotake et al, 2007;Onishi et al, 2009], and less dense GPS networks in Europe [Borries et al, 2009;Jakowski et al, 2012;Otsuka et al, 2013] and China [Song et al, 2013;Ding et al, 2014]. Since mid-1990s, ground-based segment of the Global Positioning System (GPS) started to grow up extensively from several hundred stations worldwide to more than 6000 stations today.…”