Study of ionospheric scintillation during geomagnetic storms at equatorial anomaly region Bhopal

Abstract

GPS L-band signals get affected by ionospheric scintillation; as a result, satellite navigation too gets affected. The most extreme scintillation activity is expected to occur near the equatorial region during geomagnetic storms. The behavior and morphology of low-latitude ionosphere are different from the other latitudes. The space weather conditions in low latitude show different nature because of the geomagnetic field. Due to penetration of soft, high energetic particles, the plasma density increases, which is the main source of generation of ionospheric irregularities scintillation. GPS scintillation at low latitudes is primarily associated with equatorial spread F. Equatorial spread F is caused by ionospheric irregularities with a spatial spectrum extending from 100 km to less than 1 m. When GPS signals encounter the ionospheric irregularities of various sizes produced during high geomagnetic and solar activity, they undergo drastic changes in their phase and amplitude scintillation indices. The accuracy and reliability of GPS system get affected by scintillation. Also the atmosphere air molecule’s content and deviation of electrons, protons, neutrons according to flow rate are observed. In the present paper, we have studied the scintillation activity at low-latitude station Bhopal.