Sub-Auroral and Mid-Latitude GNSS ROTI Performance during Solar Cycle 24 Geomagnetic Disturbed Periods: Towards Storm's Early Sensing.

Kacper Kotulak,Leszek Błaszkiewicz,Adam Froń,Paweł Flisek,Zishen Li,Ningbo Wang,Andrzej Krankowski

doi:10.3390/s21134325

Abstract

Geomagnetic storms—triggered by the interaction between Earth’s magnetosphere and interplanetary magnetic field, driven by solar activity—are important for many Earth-bound aspects of life. Serious events may impact the electroenergetic infrastructure, but even weaker storms generate noticeable irregularities in the density of ionospheric plasma. Ionosphere electron density gradients interact with electromagnetic radiation in the radiofrequency domain, affecting sub- and trans-ionospheric transmissions. The main objective of the manuscript is to find key features of the storm-induced plasma density behaviour irregularities in regard to the event’s magnitude and general geomagnetic conditions. We also aim to set the foundations for the mid-latitude ionospheric plasma density now-casting irregularities. In the manuscript, we calculate the GPS+GLONASS-derived rate of TEC (total electron content) index (ROTI) for the meridional sector of 10–20 E, covering the latitudes between 40 and 70 N. Such an approach reveals equatorward spread of the auroral TEC irregularities reaching down to mid-latitudes. We have assessed the ROTI performance for 57 moderate-to-severe storms that occurred during solar cycle 24 and analyzed their behaviors in regard to the geomagnetic conditions (described by Kp, Dst, AE, Sym-H and PC indices).

Highlights

Geomagnetic storms are not events that often pull people’s attention—they are usually noticed in the context of aurora visibility at middle or even low latitudes, while Earth’s magnetic field is an important aspect from an Earth-bound life point of view
The magnetosphere acts a kind of protective barrier against solar radiation and solar matter and since it interacts with energetic particles and electromagnetic radiation, it is naturally disrupted in the process
ROTI intensity in the subsequent latitude-epoch bin is represented with a color cell which ranges from blue (ROTI = 0 TEC units (TECU)/min) to yellow (ROTI > 0.5 TECU/min); missing values are marked with a deep blue color

Summary

Introduction

Geomagnetic storms are not events that often pull people’s attention—they are usually noticed in the context of aurora visibility at middle or even low latitudes, while Earth’s magnetic field is an important aspect from an Earth-bound life point of view. The magnetosphere acts a kind of protective barrier against solar radiation and solar matter and since it interacts with energetic particles and electromagnetic radiation, it is naturally disrupted in the process. Disruptions to Earth’s magnetic field may cause a whole range of negative effects on many aspects of everyday life [1,2]. There have been reported events of magnitudes that caused severe outages in the power grid (including blackouts) and serious damages of the telegraph infrastructure [1,3]. Humanity relies on electricity far more, and similar events could bring serious economic consequences for power and telecommunication systems and even extend to transport infrastructure (such as pipelines)

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