Reconstruction of Solar Radio Flux Using Earth Equatorial Ionosphere Data

Abstract

Solar radio flux (SF) is an indicator of the solar activity. It affects the Earth ionosphere. However, SF influences equatorial ionosphere anomaly region (EIA) in more dynamic fashion than the global ionosphere. Therefore, in this paper, an attempt is made to reconstruct SF from EIA ionosphere measurements. Global ionosphere model (GIM) data for years from 2012 to 2016 in EIA region is used to develop the algorithm. Then the algorithm is independently verified by applying it to the regional GPS aided Geo Augmented Navigation system (GAGAN) ionosphere measurements for year 2016. The mean error in the reconstructed SF from GIM and GAGAN data is zero with the difference of ±5 sfu for more than 90% of time for the year 2016. The reconstructed SF using GIM and GAGAN shows the similar error pattern. Our work proves that the regional equatorial ionosphere models can be used to reconstruct SF.