Global Ionospheric Response to Intense Variations of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity According to the Data of the GNSS Global Networks of Navigation Receivers

Abstract

The global response of the ionosphere to intense geomagnetic storms and variations of the solaractivity according to the solar flux F10.7 is considered. As a source of information, data on total electron content(TEC) calculated from measurements of the global network of receivers of the global navigation satellitesystems are used. Unlike many publications, where the effects of individual unique geophysical events arestudied in detail (for example, the superstorm of October 28, 2003), we considered the effects of strong storms(Dst ≤ –80 nT) starting from 2005. The main attention was paid to the dependence on the onset time of themain phase of the storm relative to local time/longitude, as well as the dependence of the intensity of the ionosphericresponse on latitude. To display the ionospheric effects of magnetic storms, a visual image was used – atwo-dimensional representation in the day-local time format, which was used to visualize ionospheric earthquakeprecursors. This approach also makes it possible to visualize the effects of solar activity variations accordingto the F10.7 index and to distinguish them from ionospheric variations during geomagnetic storms. As aresult, it was possible to create a generalized global “pattern” of a geomagnetic storm in the Earth’s ionosphere