Ionospheric response to the 2006 sudden stratospheric warming event over the equatorial and low latitudes in the Brazilian sector using GPS observations

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to study the response of the ionospheric F-region using GPS-TEC measurements at equatorial and low latitude regions over the Brazilian sector during an sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event in the year 2006. In this work, we present vertical total electron content (VTEC) and phase fluctuations derived from GPS network in Brazil. The continuous wavelet transform (CWT) was employed to check the periodicities of the ∆VTEC during the SSW event. The results show a strong decrease in VTEC and ∆VTEC values in the afternoon over low latitudes from DOY 05–39 (during the SSW event) mainly after the second SSW temperature peak. The ionospheric ∆VTEC pattern over Brazilian sector shows diurnal and semidiurnal oscillations during the 2006 SSW event. In addition, for the first time, variations in ∆VTEC (low latitude stations) with periods of about 02–08day have been reported during an SSW event. Using GPS stations located in the Brazilian sector, it is reported for the first time that equatorial ionospheric irregularities were not suppressed by the SSW event.