Probing ionospheric TEC near South Geomagnetic Pole by use of GNSS observations

Abstract

Total electron content (TEC) is one of the most important parameters of the Earth’s ionosphere. This parameter determines the degree of ionization and the dispersion properties of the ionosphere. Now the most affordable way to determine ionospheric parameters is the use of radio signals from the global navigation satellite systems GLONASS, GPS, GALILEO and BDS. TEC is now being routinely monitored by global GNSS networks almost everywhere on Earth except geomagnetic poles. The observations of TEC at the Vostok antarctic station were carried out jointly by Saint Petersburg State University and Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute. Observations were started in 2016 and continued to this day with small interruptions. In this work we have processed the GNSS observations with RTKLIB and GeNeSiS software packages. As a result of this processing we have estimated the TEC from code and phase observables. The resulting TEC time series were analysed and compared to the global TEC map. A reasonable accordance with previous results has been reached. However, our results are specific to the South Geomagnetic Pole and reflect ionospheric behaviour near it. It can be seen that TEC changes more abruptly near the Geomagnetic Pole than elsewhere. These results may potentially augment our knowledge about ionosphere structure and evolution near the geomagnetic poles.