Abstract
This paper investigates the total electron content (TEC) which is a major challenge to space and related industries, most especially in an equatorial region like Thailand within the geographical latitude 07°35'N - 20°17'N. This research was achieved using radio occultation data from COSMIC mission. The monthly, seasonal and annual TEC and electron density variation monitoring conducted during increasing solar activity from 2010 to 2013 due to changes and instability of ionospheric parameters. It was observed that electron density and TEC was predominant in summer season. Summer has the highest electron density and TEC values all through and the annual mean values keep on increasing within the period under consideration. In conclusion, ionospheric fluctuations and perturbations were observed to be at pick between the months of March and May. The results of the study demonstrated that ionospheric irregularities were steadily on the increase, confirming 24th solar cycle prediction by NASA and depended on many factors among the major ones which are located on the latitude, season and solar activity.
Highlights
Ionosphere is the upper layer of the Earth atmosphere which has a great impact on signal from telecommunication system
Ionosphere influences GPS signals mostly in the equatorial region within latitude of 20 ̊N and 20 ̊S which results in error measurements and the need to analyze the variation of the total electron content in the ionosphere
The only way to minimize its effect is to monitor the electron density and total electron content (TEC) though a very difficult task in real-time as it is constantly changing over time and space
Summary
Ionosphere is the upper layer of the Earth atmosphere which has a great impact on signal from telecommunication system. It consists of free electrons and ions that are mostly concentrated in the F-region and produced mainly by solar radiation [1]. It causes delay of electromagnetic signals passing through it being a dispersive medium [2]. Right from the pioneer GPS/MET mission, low earth orbit (LEO) based GNSS radio occultation (RO) technique has been a powerful technique in ionosphere monitoring. Many LEO satellites were launched with radio occultation payload, which included: CHAMP, GRACE, SACC/D, COSMIC, C/NOFS, Metop-A/B, and TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X [4] [5]
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