Statistical study on the characterization of phase and amplitude scintillation events in the high-latitude region during 2014–2020 based on ISMR

Abstract

A better understanding of the climatology of the ionospheric scintillation in the high-latitude region is beneficial to model the adverse effect of the ionospheric scintillation on the positioning navigation and timing services of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). This paper conducts a statistical study on the characterization of the phase and amplitude scintillation events in the high-latitude region based on scintillation indices provided by ionospheric scintillation monitoring receivers (ISMR) collected during the years of 2014 to 2020. Results of this paper show that phase scintillation dominates in most of the high-latitude regions. The proportion of the phase scintillation with strong magnitude in the middle-high latitude region is greater than that in the high and middle latitude regions, but the duration of the scintillation in the middle-high latitude region is generally shorter, with an average value of about 8 min. The ionospheric scintillation presents seasonal and diurnal dependency due to the effect of the solar radiation and earth orientation. The relationships between the occurrence of ionospheric scintillation and the space weather parameters, Ap and IMF, are also studied, showing that Ap can reflect the intensity of the ionospheric scintillation in the middle-high latitude region, and the ionospheric scintillation occurs more frequently under the condition of the northward IMF.