Advances in Ionospheric Space Weather by Using FORMOSAT-7/COSMIC-2 GNSS Radio Occultations

Details

• Journal Title:
  Atmosphere
• Personal Author:
  Liu, Jann-Yenq ; Lin, Chien-Hung ; Rajesh, Panthalingal Krishnanunni ; Lin, Chi-Yen ; Chang, Fu-Yuan ; Lee, I-Te ; Fang, Tzu-Wei ; Fuller-Rowell, Dominic ; Chen, Shih-Ping
• NOAA Program & Office:
  CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences) ; NWS (National Weather Service) ; SWPC (Space Weather Prediction Center)
• Description:
  This paper provides an overview of the contributions of the space-based global navigation satellite system (GNSS) radio occultation (RO) measurements from the FORMOSAT-7/COSMIC2 (F7/C2) mission in advancing our understanding of ionospheric plasma physics in the purview of space weather. The global positioning system (GPS) occultation experiment (GOX) onboard FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC (F3/C), with more than four and half million ionospheric RO soundings during April 2006–May 2020, offered a unique three-dimensional (3D) perspective to examine the global electron density distribution and unravel the underlying physical processes. The current F7/C2 carries TGRS (Tri-GNSS radio occultation system) has tracked more than 4000 RO profiles within ±35° latitudes per day since 25 June 2019. Taking advantage of the larger number of low-latitude soundings, the F7/C2 TGRS observations were used here to examine the 3D electron density structures and electrodynamics of the equatorial ionization anomaly, plasma depletion bays, and four-peaked patterns, as well as the S4 index of GNSS signal scintillations in the equatorial and low-latitude ionosphere, which have been previously investigated by using F3/C measurements. The results demonstrated that the denser low-latitude soundings enable the construction of monthly global electron density maps as well the altitude-latitude profiles with higher spatial and temporal resolution windows, and revealed longitudinal and seasonal characteristics in greater detail. The enhanced F7/C2 RO observations were further applied by the Central Weather Bureau/Space Weather Operation Office (CWB/SWOO) in Taiwan and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Space Weather Prediction Center (NOAA/SWPC) in the United States to specify the ionospheric conditions for issuing alerts and warnings for positioning, navigation, and communication customers. A brief description of the two models is also provided.
• Keywords:
  Atmospheric Science Environmental Science (miscellaneous)
• Source:
  Atmosphere, 13(6), 858
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13060858
• ISSN:
  2073-4433
• Format:
  PDF
• Publisher:
  MDPI AG
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• License:
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Rights Information:
  CC BY
• Compliance:
  Submitted
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:76d5792973a88a62bc8fb37622bc0c486f17cd30ad7699825c34fa60c5e91b79
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/51960/noaa_51960_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 17.69 MB ]