Analysis of probability density functions of Total Electron Content for magnetic conjugate locations

Abstract

In this study, the parametric probability density functions (PDF) of within-the-hour, IONOLAB-TEC estimates are obtained for a number of magnetic conjugate locations. We build on this analysis to identify characterization of variability of ionosphere and associate by examining magnetic conjugate stations. The magnetic conjugate of magnetic coordinate is obtained by keeping the magnetic meridian and reversing the magnetic latitude from one hemisphere to the other hemisphere. The symmetry and asymmetry of magnetic hemispheres are investigated through ionospheric and plasmaspheric TEC content for the years 2009 to 2011 for every hour of the day. In estimation of TEC, IONOLAB-TEC method is applied to recorded data from active magnetic conjugate GPS stations and to compare the two other stations from North and South America. The chosen stations are in high latitude and also midlatitude magnetic regions. The average and standard deviation values of the chosen distributions increase with the sunspot numbers (SSN). It is anticipated that the estimated values of IONOLAB-TEC to increase according to the eleven-year solar cycle through 2009 to 2011. The chosen PDF's are generally Weibull distributed for sunset and sunrise hours in the years with high sunspot numbers (SSN). The other hours are usually Lognormally distributed especially for the years with low SSN. It can be concluded that magnetic conjugate stations can be assessable to obtain the statistical description of ionosphere. The results will be used in the future studies regarding modeling of ionosphere and automatic TEC map updates.