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Ionospheric Disturbances and Their Impact on IPS Using MEXART Observations

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Abstract

We study the impact of ionospheric disturbances on the Earth’s environment caused by the solar events that occurred from 20 April to 31 May 2010, using observations from the Mexican Array Radio Telescope (MEXART). During this period of time, several astronomical sources presented fluctuations in their radio signals. Wavelet analysis, together with complementary information such as the vertical total electron content (vTEC) and the Dst index, were used to identify and understand when the interplanetary scintillation (IPS) could be contaminated by ionospheric disturbances (IOND). We find that radio signal perturbations were sometimes associated with IOND and/or IPS fluctuations; however, in some cases, it was not possible to clearly identify their origin. Our Fourier and wavelet analyses showed that these fluctuations had frequencies in the range ≈ 0.01 Hz – ≈ 1.0 Hz (periodicities of 100 s to 1 s).

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Notes

  1. http://www.mexart.unam.mx .

  2. http://wdc.kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dstdir/ .

  3. Usually the vTEC is measured in TEC units (TECu), where 1 TECu=1016 m−2.

  4. See the Large Angle and Spectroscopic (LASCO) CME catalog at http://cdaw.gsfc.nasa.gov/CME_list/ .

  5. http://atoc.colorado.edu/research/wavelets/ .

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the MEXART team, in particular: A. González-Esparza (P. I. of MEXART), P. Villanueva, E. Andrade, and E. Aguilar, for technical support and provision of data. We also thank CORS, SOPAC, and UNAVCO for incorporating the data on their respective websites from which the GPS data can be freely downloaded. We are also grateful to NOAA-SWPC for access to the TEC calculation program. We also wish to thank the Servicio Sismológico Nacional and E. Cabral for providing some Mexican GPS data. This article was possible thanks to the PAPIIT-UNAM projects IN111509 and IA102514-2. M. Rodríguez-Martínez thanks REDCyTE and CONACyT for a postdoctoral fellowship supported by the project Estudio de la ionosfera y sus aplicaciones for the Mexican Space Agency (MSA). The authors finally thank the suggestions of M. Sánchez and S. Kurtz, which have improved this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores, Unidad Morelia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Campus Morelia, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro No. 8701, Ex-Hacienda de San José de la Huerta, C.P. 58190, Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico

    M. Rodríguez-Martínez

  2. Centro de Geociencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Campus Juriquilla, Blvd Juriquilla No. 3001, C.P. 76230, Juriquilla, Querétaro, Mexico

    H. R. Pérez-Enríquez, R. López-Montes & J. A. L. Cruz-Abeyro

  3. Instituto de Geofísica, Unidad Michoacán, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Campus Morelia, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro No. 8701, Ex-Hacienda de San José de la Huerta, C.P. 58190, Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico

    A. Carrillo-Vargas

  4. CIRES-University of Colorado, 325 Broadway W/NP9, Boulder, CO, USA

    E. A. Araujo-Pradere

  5. Instituto de Geofísica, Unidad de Cómputo, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, C.P. 04510, México, D.F., Mexico

    G. A. Casillas-Pérez

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  1. M. Rodríguez-Martínez
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  2. H. R. Pérez-Enríquez
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  3. A. Carrillo-Vargas
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  4. R. López-Montes
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  5. E. A. Araujo-Pradere
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  6. G. A. Casillas-Pérez
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  7. J. A. L. Cruz-Abeyro
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Correspondence to M. Rodríguez-Martínez.

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Rodríguez-Martínez, M., Pérez-Enríquez, H.R., Carrillo-Vargas, A. et al. Ionospheric Disturbances and Their Impact on IPS Using MEXART Observations. Sol Phys 289, 2677–2695 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-014-0496-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-014-0496-8

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