Validation results of maximum S4 index in F-layer derived from GNOS on FY3C satellite

Abstract

The first Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Occultation Sounder (GNOS) compatible with both BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) and Global Positioning System was successfully launched into orbit on September 23, 2013, which was mounted on the FengYun-3C (FY3C) satellite. FY3C/GNOS has produced a lot of ionospheric radio occultation (RO) scintillation data until now. This work was conducted to verify the accuracy of the scintillation data observed by FY3C/GNOS for monitoring of the GNSS signal attenuation and early warning of the possible GNSS signal interruption, thus laying the foundation for research on ionospheric space weather. In this work, the ionospheric F-layer maximum scintillation indexes S4 (\(S4_{{{\text{max}}}}^{{\text{F}}}\)) probed by FY3C/GNOS and Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC) are matched into data pairs by data matching criterions during January 10, 2014 and January 9, 2015, which allow the comparison and error analysis of \(S4_{{{\text{max}}}}^{{\text{F}}}\) indexes between FY3C/GNOS and COSMIC. We find that FY3C/GNOS overestimates the \(S4_{{{\text{max}}}}^{{\text{F}}}\) data compared to that of COSMIC, and the biases and standard deviations (Stds) of the differences between the two \(S4_{{{\text{max}}}}^{{\text{F}}}\) indexes (FY3C/GNOS-COSMIC) in data pairs are 0.004 and 0.063 in the whole day, 0.007 and 0.080 at nighttime, 0.001 and 0.046 at daytime, respectively. The statistical error results verify the precision consistency of the ionospheric RO scintillation data between FY3C/GNOS and COSMIC. The errors at nighttime are larger than those in the whole day and daytime, which is probably due to time-varying ionospheric irregularities after midnight and disparity of the data matching criterions. Since the deployment of FY3 series satellites, GNOS can contribute more scintillation data to the international ionospheric research and forecasting of ionospheric space weather.