Frequency Of Ionospheric F2 Layer Research Articles

Forecasting Ionospheric foF2 Using Bidirectional LSTM and Attention Mechanism

AbstractThe critical frequency of ionospheric F2 layer (foF2) is an important ionospheric characteristic parameter. In this paper, a deep learning model based on Bidirectional long short‐term memory (BiLSTM) and attention mechanism is implemented for predicting the foF2 parameter. The inputs of models are the foF2 of globally available ionospheric ionosonde stations, geographic longitude and latitude, world time (UT), geomagnetic activity index, and solar activity index from 2015 to 2017. The superiority of the model is analyzed from different latitudes, seasons, and geomagnetic conditions. The results show that the prediction performance of the Bidirectional long short‐term memory model based on attention mechanism (BiLSTM‐Attention) is better than other models. The performance of the prediction model is optimal at high latitudes. The root mean square error (RMSE) and correlation coefficient (R) of the BiLSTM‐Attention model are 0.539 MHZ and 0.908 MHz at high latitudes, respectively. In terms of RMSE, it is 25.243%, 18.209%, and 11.203% lower than those of the international reference ionosphere (IRI), LSTM, and BiLSTM models, respectively. The prediction results of the four seasons show that the models are more applicable in winter. Compared with the IRI model, the RMSE of the BiLSTM‐Attention model in spring, summer, autumn, and winter is reduced by 24.344%, 21.181%, 25.058%, and 30.948%, respectively. The prediction effect of the BiLSTM‐Attention model is improved in the magnetic quiet period, the magnetic moderate period and the magnetic storm period. Also, the improvement effect is more obvious in the magnetostatic day, and the RMSE is reduced by 27.462% compared with the IRI model.

Method of ionospheric parameter analysis in the problems of real-time data processing

The paper presents an ionospheric data analysis method based on the application of wavelet transform and threshold functions. The method allows the authors to analyze ionospheric parameters and to detect anomalies occurring during ionospheric disturbances in real-time mode. We adapted method for 15-minut data of ionospheric vertical sounding (critical frequency of ionospheric F2 layer, Paratunka (Kamchatka) site data were used). The estimates showed high sensitivity of the method and the possibility to realize it in real-time mode (as data become available).

Determination of the ionospheric foF2 using a stand-alone GPS receiver

The critical frequency of ionospheric F2 layer (foF2) is a measure of the highest frequency of radio signal that may be reflected back by the F2 layer, and it is associated with ionospheric peak electron density in the F2 layer. Accurate long-term foF2 variations are usually derived from ionosonde observations. In this paper, we propose a new method to observe foF2 using a stand-alone global positioning system (GPS) receiver. The proposed method relies on the mathematical equation that relates foF2 to GPS observations. The equation is then implemented in the Kalman filter algorithm to estimate foF2 at every epoch of the observation (30-s rate). Unlike existing methods, the proposed method does not require any additional information from ionosonde observations and does not require any network of GPS receivers. It only requires as inputs the ionospheric scale height and the modeled plasmaspheric electron content, which practically can be derived from any existing ionospheric/plasmaspheric model. We applied the proposed method to estimate long-term variations of foF2 at three GPS stations located at the northern hemisphere (NICO, Cyprus), the southern hemisphere (STR1, Australia) and the south pole (SYOG, Antarctic). To assess the performance of the proposed method, we then compared the results against those derived by ionosonde observations and the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) 2012 model. We found that, during the period of high solar activity (2011–2012), the values of absolute mean bias between foF2 derived by the proposed method and ionosonde observations are in the range of 0.2–0.5 MHz, while those during the period of low solar activity (2009–2010) are in the range of 0.05–0.15 MHz. Furthermore, the root-mean-square-error (RMSE) values during high and low solar activities are in the range of 0.8–0.9 MHz and of 0.6–0.7 MHz, respectively. We also noticed that the values of absolute mean bias and RMSE between foF2 derived by the proposed method and the IRI-2012 model are slightly larger than those between the proposed method and ionosonde observations. These results demonstrate that the proposed method can estimate foF2 with a comparable accuracy. Since the proposed method can estimate foF2 at every epoch of the observation, it therefore has promising applications for investigating various scales (from small to large) of foF2 irregularities.

Extraction of the geomagnetic activity effect from TEC data: A comparison between the spectral whitening method and 28 day running median

AbstractThe spectral whitening method (SWM) has been previously proved to be very effective at identifying ionospheric disturbances on foF2 (the critical frequency of ionospheric F2 layer). To continuously investigate the strength of the new method, in this paper SWM has been used to extract the effect of geomagnetic activity on total electron content (TEC) and has been compared with the traditional 28 day running median centered (RMC) method. First, ionospheric variations during quiet and disturbed conditions are analyzed by both SWM and RMC. The results from RMC, compared with those from SWM, overestimate the disturbance occurrence by about 5–20% during the geomagnetic storms and up to 35% during the quiet time. The possible reason is that the results can be contaminated by the residuals of periodic components in the RMC identified disturbances. Meanwhile, the power spectral analysis of the disturbance field shows that the annual and diurnal variations are still significant in RMC results but very weak in SWM results, which indicates that SWM has some advantage to clean up the background variation. Finally, the analysis of the spatial correlation of the disturbance field with F10.7 and Ap illustrates that the effects of solar and geomagnetic activities from SWM are significantly reduced and enhanced, respectively. It suggests that the SWM is more effective in extracting the effect of geomagnetic activity from TEC than RMC. The relative deviation of TEC derived by SWM is more sensitive to geomagnetic activity than solar activity.

Nighttime ionospheric saturation effect estimation in the African equatorial anomaly trough: A comparison of two approaches

AbstractUsing the two‐segmented and the quadratic regression analyses methods, the existence of saturation effect in the ionospheric electron content has been established in published literatures. With data set that spans an 11 year period (one solar cycle) from an African low‐latitude station—Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (Geographical coordinates 12oN, 1.8oW, dip ~3oN)—and adopting the quadratic and the two‐segmented regression methods, we have studied nighttime saturation effect on the critical frequency of ionospheric F2 layer (foF2) around the magnetic dip. Both methods revealed that saturation effect in foF2 cuts across all seasons during nighttime. This phenomenon was least at the peak of the prereversal enhancement (PRE) period and increases significantly beyond midnight. Either of the two approaches can be adopted for saturation effect studies. The advantage of the two‐segmented over the quadratic is that the change point (breakpoint), which is the solar flux level where saturation effects first become observable, can be determined. The effect seen around the PRE period may be attributed to the E × B drift while the effect beyond the PRE period is masked by other mechanisms.

The Planetary Wave Activity in Temperatures of the Stratosphere, Mesosphere and in Critical Frequencies of Ionospheric F2 Layer

A large body of experimental evidence lends credit to the existence of a close relationship between ionospheric parameters and the underlying atmosphere. Vertical-incidence ionospheric sounding data and temperature measurements at stratospheric (30 km) and mesospheric (80 km) heights have been used in investigating the interrelation between the occurrence of fluctuations with periods of planetary waves in temperature variations at different heights and inF2layer critical frequency variations (foF2) under low solar activity conditions for the time interval 2006-2007. The distinctive characteristics of the manifestation of common periodicities of the wave structures under consideration are discussed. The statistically significant periods of stratospheric and mesospheric temperature fluctuations vary from 11 to 49 days, whereas foF2 periodograms show higher-frequency fluctuations with periods of 5, 8, 9, and 10 days. The study revealed a similarity between periodic structures for the variations in the parameters involved.

Relation of long-period variations in the critical frequencies of the F 2 layer to geomagnetic activity

The relation of the long-period variations in the midnight and noon values of the critical frequency of the ionospheric F2 layer at three midlatitude stations (Irkutsk, Moscow, and Boulder) to the daily mean index of geomagnetic activity in years of different solar activity has been studied. It has been found that the correlation coefficients between the above parameters depend on time of day, season, and solar activity level. The correlation coefficients are higher at night than in the daytime, especially at low solar activity. The highest absolute values of the correlation coefficient most often appear during equinoxes: April–May and September–October. It has been shown that the variability of the critical frequencies of the midlatitude ionospheric F2 layer depends not only on geomagnetic activity but also (to a considerable degree) on the effect of the lower atmosphere.

Ionospheric precursors observed at low latitudes around the time of koyna earthquake

On December 11, 1967 at 05:21 LT, an immense earthquake of magnitude 6.7 struck Koyna, the Indian province of Maharashtra. Its epicenter was located at geographic latitude 17.37°N and longitude 73.75°E with depth of about 3 km. Ground based measurements show variation in the critical frequency of ionospheric F2 layer (foF2) before and after the shock. In the present study the behavior of F2-region of ionosphere has been examined over the equatorial and low latitudinal region ionosphere during the month of December 1967 around the time of Koyna earthquake. For this purpose, the ionospheric data collected with the help of ground-based ionosondes installed at Hyderabad (located close to the earthquake epicenter) Ahmedabad, Trichirapulli, Kodaikanal and Trivendrum have been utilized. The upper and lower bound of Interquartile range (IRQ) are constructed to monitor the variations in foF2 other than day-to-day and diurnal pattern for finding the seismo-ionospheric precursors. Some anomalous electron density variations are observed between post midnight hours to local pre-noon hours at each station. These anomalies are strongly time dependent and appeared a couple of days before the main shock. The period considered in this study comes under the quiet geomagnetic conditions. Hence, the observed anomalies (which are more than the usual day-to-day variability) over all stations are likely to be associated with this imminent earthquake. The possible mechanism to explain these anomalies is the effect of seismogenic electric field generated just above the surface of earth within the earthquake preparation zone well before the earthquake due to emission of radioactive particles and then propagated upward, which perturbs the F-region ionosphere.