Forecasting of Ionospheric Total Electron Content Data using Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model for Mid-Latitude Region During Solar Minimum and Maximum

Abstract

In this study, the relationship between the Total Electron Content (TEC) data and the geomagnetic indices (Dst, AE and Kp) and the solar index F10.7 obtained along with the time of the day from the Space Physics Data Facility, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center for Baie-Comeau (Baie) station (49.22°N, 6S.15°W) and Schefferville (Sch2) station (54.S3°N, 66.S3°W) Canada, located in the mid-latitude region was investigated for the Solar Minimum (2008) and Maximum (2014) years for prediction of the TEC. The objectives of this study are: i) to investigate the long-term and short-term dependence of TEC on the selected geomagnetic indices and F10.7 index, using an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model, ii) to test the stability of the ARDL model using various diagnostic tests such as the Jarque-Bera (JB) normality test, the serial correlation Lagrange multiplier (LM) test, and Breusch-Pagan-Godfrey heteroskedasticity test and iii) to forecast the TEC data using the ARDL model for the solar minimum and maximum years. The results indicate statistically that during the solar minimum year, the TEC depends only on the time of the day and is independent of the solar and geomagnetic parameters whereas for the solar maximum year it depends on the solar index F10.7 and time of the day. The proposed models passed the various residual diagnostic tests and stability tests. The RMSE for the predicted data was 0.79 for Baie and 0.93 for Sch2 stations for the solar minimum year and 2.00 for Baie and 1.96 for Sch2 for the solar maximum year.