Large-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances using ionospheric imaging at storm time: A case study on 17 march 2013

Abstract

A moderate geomagnetic storm occurred on March 17, 2013, during which large-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (LSTIDs) are observed over China by ionosondes and GPS from Crustal Movement Observation Network of China (CMONOC) and the International GNSS Service (IGS). Ionosonde data and computerized ionospheric tomography (CIT) technique are employed to analyze the disturbances in our study. The maximum entropy cross spectral analysis (MECSA) method is used to obtain the propagation parameters of the LSTIDs. Spatio-temporal variations of ionospheric electron density (IED) and total electron content (TEC) during this geomagnetic storm over China are investigated. Disturbance images of IED and TEC are also presented in the paper. The results show two LSTID events at about 12:00UT and 15:00UT during the main phase of the storm. Besides, the LSTIDs with a duration of 40min are detected over China. It is confirmed that the LSTIDs travel from north to south with a horizontal velocity of 400–500m/s, and moved southwestwards with a horizontal velocity of 250–300m/s, respectively.