Observations of Ionospheric irregularities in the low and mid latitude regions across the Africa-Europe sector during 2014, at the peak of solar cycle 24

Abstract

Contrary to the low latitude ionosphere, the mid latitude region is generally considered to lack the necessary processes required to generate the irregularities that causes scintillation and thus commonly regarded as a less scintillation active region. However, recently, the dynamics of the mid latitude ionosphere have been deeply studied to observe and model the development of plasma instabilities.The ionospheric disturbances associated with mid-latitudes ionospheric irregularities are mainly the mid-latitude ExB instability which can be excited when there is significantly strong eastward electric field.And the classical medium scale traveling ionospheric disturbances have all been related to the spread F phenomenon that indicates ionospheric irregularities. In this work, using the IGS network of GNSS receivers spread across the low latitude and mid-latitude regions over the African and Europe sectors we present the trends in ionospheric irregularity activity levels based on Rate of TEC Index (ROTI) fluctuations. The trends are statistically represented based on counts of nighttime ROTI values above a threshold of 0.4 TECU/min. we further investigate on the possible mechanism responsible for mid latitude ionospheric irregularities shown in this study. Our results highlights on the need to further study the mechanisms responsible for ionospheric irregularity formations at mid-latitude and how these irregularities cause scintillation observations.