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Estimation of the Ionospheric Effects of Geomagnetic Disturbances Based on Data from Wakkanai Station

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Abstract

Ionosonde measurements of the critical frequency of the ionospheric F2 layer (foF2) at Wakkanai station (Japan) are analyzed with the method of superposed epochs. The station is situated in a region of high seismicity. Winter periods with low sunspot and geomagnetic activity and high seismic activity are considered. The goals of this work were the quantitative characterization and comparison of ionospheric disturbances induced by the development of geomagnetic storms/geomagnetic disturbances. Geomagnetic disturbances refer to manifestations of geomagnetic activity with an intensity that is higher than “quiet” geomagnetic background but not higher than the threshold characteristic of weak geomagnetic storms. It is ascertained that weak geomagnetic storms and geomagnetic disturbances, from the time of the main trough in the Dst index after the onset of a geomagnetic storm/geomagnetic disturbance to the end of the third day, result in only positive foF2 deviations. The deviations exceed 6% of the background; the maximal relative deviations from the background (δfoF2max) are ~17% and ~14%, respectively. For geomagnetic disturbances, the most significant response of the ionosphere is observed ~7 h after the main trough in the Dst index. The resulting assessments can be used to filter out false ionospheric earthquake precursors with analysis of the ionospheric data from Wakkanai station.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are grateful to the National Geophysical Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (United States) (OMNIWeb service of the NASA/GSFC Space Physics Data Facility) for the geophysical data used in this work, as well as the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT, Japan) and World Data Center for Geomagnetism, Kyoto (Japan) for access to ionospheric and magnetic data.

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  1. Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation, Russian Academy of Sciences, 108840, Troitsk, Moscow, Russia

    A. D. Legen’ka & V. V. Khegai

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  1. A. D. Legen’ka
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  2. V. V. Khegai
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Correspondence to A. D. Legen’ka or V. V. Khegai.

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Translated by O. Ponomareva

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Legen’ka, A.D., Khegai, V.V. Estimation of the Ionospheric Effects of Geomagnetic Disturbances Based on Data from Wakkanai Station. Geomagn. Aeron. 60, 577–585 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0016793220050126

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