Variations in the horizontal correlation radius of the ionosphere during a magnetospheric substorm

Abstract

A change in the correlation radius of the ionosphere during the magnetospheric substorm of February 14, 2011, which is considered to be 500 km at midlatitudes, has been estimated. The vertical sounding (VS) data from the St. Petersburg and Sodankyla (Finland) observatories, as well as the data of oblique incidence sounding (OIS) at the Sodankyla-St. Petersburg path with a length of 790 km, have been analyzed. A specific feature of the experiment consisted in that the signals of a VS transmitter from Sodankyla were synchronously received at the receiving point on the OIS path in St. Petersburg. The OIS path reflection point is located at a distance of ∼400 km from the VS reflection point. Ionograms typical of the VS and OIS signal reflection points in the ionosphere, the distance between which was slightly smaller than the correlation radius of the ionosphere (500 km), and the data of the Sodankyla and St. Petersburg ionosondes have been compared. It has been indicated that a horizontal correlation radius of 400 km can only be considered acceptable during three disturbance phases: the initial phase before the reconfiguration of the ionosphere; the explosion phase (the disturbance maximum), when only the sporadic Es layer is the reflecting ionospheric layer; and the recovery phase, when a disturbance already ceases and the ionosphere returns to its initial undisturbed state. During other disturbance phases, the correlation radius (if it exists) is much smaller than 400 km.