Eye on the Ionosphere: The Correlation between Solar 10.7 cm Radio Flux and Ionospheric Range Delay |
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| Authors: | Patricia H Doherty John A Klobuchar Joseph M Kunches |
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| Institution: | (1) Institute for Scientific Research, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3862, US;(2) Innovative Solutions International, 27 Conant Road, Lincoln, MA 01773, US;(3) NOAA/Space Environment Center, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303, US |
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| Abstract: | Patricia Doherty joins the regular contributors of this column to discuss the correlation between measurements of solar 10.7
cm radio flux and ionospheric range delay effects on GPS. Mrs. Doherty has extensive experience in the analysis of ionospheric
range delays from worldwide systems and in the utilization and development of analytical and theoretical models of the Earth's
ionosphere.
Ionospheric range delay effects on GPS and other satellite ranging systems are directly proportional to the Total Electron
Content (TEC) encountered along slant paths from a satellite to a ground location. TEC is a highly variable and complex parameer
that is a function of geographic location, local time, season, geomagnetic activity, and solar activity. When insufficiently
accounted for, ionospheric TEC can seriously limit the performance of satellite ranging applications. Since the ionosphere
is a dispersive medium, dual-frequency Global Positoning System (GPS) users can make automatic corrections for ionospheric
range delay by computing the apparent difference in the time delays between the two signals. Single-frequency GPS users must
depend on alternate methods to account for the ionospheric range delay. Various models of the ionosphere have been used to
provide estimates of ionospheric range delay. These models range from the GPS system's simple eight-coefficient algorithm
designed to correct for approximately 50% rms of the TEC, to state-of-the-art models derived from physical first principles,
which can correct for up to 70 to 80% rms of the TEC but at a much greater computational cost.
In an effort to improve corrections for the day-to-day variability of the ionosphere, some attempts have been made to predict
the TEC by using the daily values of solar 10.7 cm radio flux (F10,7). The purpose of this article is to show that this type of prediction is not useful due to irregular, and sometimes very
poor, correlation between daily values of TEC and F10.7. Long-term measurements of solar radio flux, however, have been shown to be well correlated with monthly mean TEC, as well
as with the critical frequency of the inonospheric F2 region (foF2), which is proportional to the electron density at the
peak of the ionospheric F2 region. ? 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. |
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