Study on the plasmaspheric Weddell Sea Anomaly based on COSMIC onboard GPS measurements

Abstract

This study investigated the morphology of the Plasmaspheric Weddell Sea Anomaly (PWSA). Measurements by GPS receivers onboard COSMIC satellites were used to determine the slant total electron content (STEC) along signal propagation paths during 2007–2017, which were converted to the zenith direction using a specific plasmaspheric projection function to obtain vertical total electron content (VTEC). The characteristics of seasonal variation of the PWSA between the four seasons were examined under conditions of high and low solar activity that corresponded to values of the F10.7 index of >120 and ≤ 120, respectively. To investigate seasonal variation of plasmaspheric VTEC, maps of geographic latitude versus geographic longitude were constructed by binning the data into 5° latitudinal grids and 15° longitudinal grids. The median value of VTEC in each grid was calculated for each season under low and high solar activity conditions. The results showed that the WSA phenomenon could also be observed in the plasmasphere (altitude ≥ 800 km) as well as in the ionosphere. The anomaly is most prominent in winter under conditions of high solar activity, and it also can be found in spring and autumn, although its amplitude is relatively small. The equatorward neutral wind is the critical driver for PWSA formation. In addition, during the polar summer, high geographic latitudes are sunlit during the entire day, leading to prolonged photoionization. This is the most essential process for the existence of the nighttime maximum in the VTEC diurnal variation at the geographic latitudes of the PWSA.