Abstract
The recent establishment of permanent Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) monitoring stations across the Sri Lankan region prompts investigating the challenging equatorial ionospheric dynamics and modeling advancements across the Indian longitudes. In this paper, we tried to investigate the ionospheric response to the solar-terrestrial events over Sri Lanka and assess the performance of the latest International Reference Ionosphere (IRI-2016) and Global Ionospheric Map (GIM) over the region. The total electron content (TEC) observations from two GNSS stations at Jaffna (9.660 N, 80.020 E) and Kalutara (6.580 N, 79.960 E) are considered for investigating a couple of major solar-terrestrial events with peculiar electrodynamics in the declining phase of 24th solar cycle: namely, (i) geomagnetic storm event during September 2017 and (ii) annular solar eclipse of 26th of December 2019. During the storm time, IRI-2016 model followed the variation pattern of GNSS-TEC, indicating a significant underestimation during noontime (∼18 TECU) and nighttime (∼7 TECU) which attains a maximum deviation of 86% during the early morning. Concerning the solar eclipse day, the model did not witness any transient response, rather remained undervalued throughout the period. On the other hand, the GIM-TEC shows a relatively better agreement with GNSS-TEC following its variation pattern during both events. A daytime overestimation of 10-15%, a higher nighttime overestimation of around 40% with a significant stormtime deviation of 84% is noticed in the GIM data. Moreover, both the models do not exhibit a clear storm-time or eclipse-time ionospheric fluctuations as clearly seen from the GNSS-TEC. This could be due to the underlying sparse experimental data coverage across the region. From the analysis of both the events and supporting literature, we emphasize further improvements in the IRI-2016 model with due consideration of the topside and plasmasphere variations. Further, the improvement in time resolution of the GIM would improve the level of understanding of the low latitude ionosphere over the Sri Lankan region.
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Abbreviations
- CCMC:
-
Community Coordinated Modeling Center
- CDDIS:
-
Crustal Dynamics Data Information System
- CODE:
-
Center for Orbit Determination in Europe
- CORS:
-
Continuously Operating Reference Station
- COSPAR:
-
Committee on Space Research
- DDEF:
-
Disturbance Dynamo Electric Field
- EEJ:
-
Equatorial Electrojet
- EIA:
-
Equatorial Ionization Anomaly
- EUV:
-
Extreme ultraviolet
- GIM:
-
Global Ionospheric Map
- GNSS:
-
Global Navigation Satellite System
- IDW:
-
Inverse Distance Weighted
- IGS:
-
International GNSS Service
- IMF:
-
Interplanetary Magnetic Field
- IONEX:
-
IONosphere map Exchange
- IRI:
-
International Reference Ionosphere
- IAAC:
-
Ionospheric Associate Analysis Centers
- PRE:
-
Pre-reversal Enhancement
- PPEF:
-
Prompt Penetration Electric field
- SBAS:
-
Satellite-Based Augmentation Services
- SPIM:
-
Standard Plasmasphere Ionosphere Model
- Sym-H:
-
Symmetric H-index
- TEC:
-
Total Electron Content
- URSI:
-
International Union of Radio Science
- Vsw:
-
Solar Wind Speed
- WDC:
-
World Data Center
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Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to the Survey Department of Sri Lanka for providing the required RINEX data and for Karawita Survey Co. Ltd for providing GNSS instrumentations. Also, we would like to thank the IRI development community, Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) for providing IRI-2016 online model (https://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/modelweb/models/iri2016_vitmo.php) and for CDDIS for providing global ionospheric maps through CDDIS-NASA server (https://cddis.nasa.gov/Data_and_Derived_Products/GNSS/atmospheric_products.html#iono. Finally, the authors would like to acknowledge the individual archives at NOAA Database (https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/satellite/goes/dataaccess.html), OMNI Database (https://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/form/omni_min.html), Kyoto World Data Center (http://wdc.kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/aedir/) for availing the solar and geomagnetic parameters considered in this study.
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Jenan, R., Dammalage, T.L. & Panda, S.K. Ionospheric TEC response to severe geomagnetic storm and annular solar eclipse through GNSS based TEC observations and assessment of IRI-2016 model and global ionosphere maps over Sri Lankan equatorial and low latitude region. Astrophys Space Sci 367, 24 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-022-04051-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-022-04051-8