Low Ionosphere under Influence of Strong Solar Radiation: Diagnostics and Modeling

Vladimir A Srećković,Ljubinko Ignjatović,Desanka M Šulić,Veljko Vujčić

doi:10.3390/app11167194

Abstract

Solar flares (SFs) and intense radiation can generate additional ionization in the Earth’s atmosphere and affect its structure. These types of solar radiation and activity create sudden ionospheric disturbances (SIDs), affect electronic equipment on the ground along with signals from space, and potentially induce various natural disasters. Focus of this work is on the study of SIDs induced by X-ray SFs using very low frequency (VLF) radio signals in order to predict the impact of SFs on Earth and analyze ionosphere plasmas and its parameters. All data are recorded by VLF BEL stations and the model computation is used to obtain the daytime atmosphere parameters induced by this extreme radiation. The obtained ionospheric parameters are compared with results of other authors. For the first time we analyzed physics of the D-region—during consecutive huge SFs which continuously perturbed this layer for a few hours—in detail. We have developed an empirical model of the D-region plasma density and gave a simple approximative formula for electron density.

Highlights

In today’s science, special attention is given to the extreme weather events, climate change, preservation, and protection, because they have been identified as crucial for sustainable development in our century
A very important question nowadays in modern society is: can we predict the magnitude of impact of explosive solar events on Earth, humans, electronic equipment, and nature in general? By analyzing past instances of these phenomena, we cannot predict the occurrence of each new event itself with certainty, but we can statistically estimate the consequences of phenomena on ionospheric parameters, perhaps predict damage to electronic equipment, predict disruption of GPS, etc
In this research we studied the amplitude (A) and phase (P) data, obtained by monitoring very low frequency (VLF) signals emitted by worldwide transmitters during solar-induced sudden ionospheric disturbances (SIDs)

Summary

Introduction

In today’s science, special attention is given to the extreme weather events, climate change, preservation, and protection, because they have been identified as crucial for sustainable development in our century. The ionosphere is a part of the atmosphere that contains ionized gases with various kinds of particles, ions, and tens of different species [1,2,3,4] with the degree of ionization which depends mainly on the incident radiation that is solar extreme ultraviolet and X-ray radiation [5,6]. This ionizing solar radiation depends on the Sun activity during the solar cycle and varies around order of magnitude during the solar minimum and the solar maximum. Many investigations indicate potential connections between this extreme activity and natural disasters such as tropical cyclones or forest fires (see e.g., [16,17,18])

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