Latitudinal variations of TEC over Europe obtained from GPSobservations

P Wielgosz,L W Baran,M V Aleshnikova,I I Shagimuratov

doi:10.5194/angeo-22-405-2004

Abstract

Abstract. GPS technique has opened broad possibilities to study the TEC distribution on a regular basis. In this paper, the latitudinal dependence of TEC over Europe for geographic latitudes ranging from 40°N to 75°N is presented. We discuss the day-to-day variations of the latitudinal TEC profiles for a period of 1999 to 2001 for both quiet and disturbed magnetic conditions. More than 4300 TEC profiles were created from the TEC maps with a one-hour interval. GPS data from 65 European permanent stations were used to produce the TEC maps. The comparison of GPS-derived TEC profiles with the IRI model is also discussed. Key words. Ionosphere (mid-latitude ionosphere; ionospheric disturbances)

Highlights

GPS technique has opened broad possibilities to study the TEC distribution on a regular basis
The data on the latitudinal dependence of TEC over Europe for geographic latitudes ranging from 40◦ N to 75◦ N is presented
One may observe the temporal development of the spatial TEC distribution

Summary

Introduction

GPS technique has opened broad possibilities to study the TEC distribution on a regular basis. The data on the latitudinal dependence of TEC over Europe for geographic latitudes ranging from 40◦ N to 75◦ N is presented. In this contribution, we discuss the day to-day variations of the latitudinal. Data from 65 European stations were used to reconstruct spatial distribution of TEC from GPS measurements. High precision GPS phase observables were fitted to the pseudo-range measurements, in order to estimate and remove phase ambiguities. When producing TEC maps, the TEC measurements from all the stations were fitted into spherical harmonic expansion with a maximum degree/order of 16. A large number of GPS stations used in this study provided a good coverage of the observational data. The TEC maps were produced with a 15-min interval and 30-s TEC measurements were averaged over this interval

Results and discussion

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Summary