Performance of short-terms prediction methods of vertical total electron content using nonlinear autoregressive neuronal network and stochastic autoregressive model

Abstract

In this contribution the performance of global short-term predictions methods of vertical total electron content (vTEC) is analyzed during high solar activity. Two kind of predicted global vTEC maps value every 1 h, one-day-ahead, are used. They are C1PG, produced by the Center for Orbit Determination in Europe (CODE), based on the extrapolation of Spherical Harmonic coefficient using Least-squares collocation and the M1PG, proposed in this work, based on multi-step Nonlinear Autoregressive Neural Network (NAR-NN).Global vTEC maps from CODE (CODG) along the year 2015, are used as reference data. The results are obtained for quiet and disturbed conditions, based on geomagnetic and ionospheric planetary indexes.The performance of the forecasting approach is extensively tested under different geospatial conditions. The testing results are very similar in terms of RMSE, as it has been found to range between 1.7 and 7 TECu. RMSE depend on the latitude sectors and geomagnetic conditions, in terms of Mean Forecast Error (MFE) the C1PG shows a clear systematic behavior being negative at Southern Hemisphere and positive at Northern Hemisphere. According to the Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) values, the relative behavior of vTEC prediction is better for M1PG than for C1PG specially during quiet days and at mid-high latitudes. In general, both models are less accuracy in the equatorial ionization anomaly region and the Southern Hemisphere.Other important contribution of this manuscript is the definition of a planetary ionospheric disturbance index, Wd, based on W-index. This parameter is useful to more complete definition in quiet and disturbed days selection, and it is shown that the dependence of the RMSE according to the latitudinal bands, it is strongly related with the respective value of Wd.