Susan Skone

The impact of geomagnetic substorms on GPS receiver performance

During the current period of solar maximum, there is concern within the GPS community regarding GPS receiver performance during periods of intense geomagnetic substorms. Such storms are common in the high latitude auroral region, and are associated with small-scale scintillation effects, which can cause receiver tracking errors and loss of phase lock. The auroral oval can extend many degrees equatorward under active ionospheric conditions, with an impact on precise positioning applications in Canada, the United States and Northern Europe. In this paper, a study of receiver tracking performance is conducted during periods of auroral substorm activity. Dual frequency observations are obtained using codeless and semicodeless GPS receivers (Trimble 4000SSi, NovAtel MiLLennium and Ashtech Z-12), and performance comparisons are established and interpreted with respect to GPS availability at solar maximum and the years beyond.

A study of smoothed TEC precision inferred from GPS measurements

The availability of a large amount of TEC data derived from dual frequency GPS measurements observed by GPS reference networks provides a great opportunity for ionosphere studies. In order to obtain better accuracy for the derived TEC, a data smoothing technique is usually employed to take advantage of both code pseudorange and carrier phase GPS measurements. The precision of TEC data therefore is dependent on the smoothing approach. However little work has been done to evaluate the precision of the smoothed TEC data obtained from different smoothing approaches. This investigation examines the properties of two popularly used smoothing approaches and develops the closed-form formulas for estimating the precision of the smoothed TEC data. In addition, a previously proposed approximate formula for estimating TEC precision is also evaluated against its closed-form formula developed in this paper. The TEC precisions derived from the closed-form precision estimation formulas for approaches I and II are analyzed in a numerical test. The results suggest that approach II outperforms approach I and the precision of TEC data smoothed by approach II is higher than approach I. For approach I, a numerical test is also conducted to compare the precision difference between the closed-form and approximate formulas for estimating TEC precision. The comparison indicates that TEC derived from the closed-form formula have better precisions than the approximate formula. Analysis also reminds users that extra cautions should be taken when using the approximate formula in order to avoid the precision divergence phenomenon.

Turbulent times in the northern polar ionosphere

A model is presented of the growth rate of turbulently generated irregularities in the electron concentration of northern polar cap plasma patches. The turbulence is generated by the short-term fluctuations in the electric field imposed on the polar cap ionosphere by electric field mapping from the magnetosphere. The model uses an ionospheric imaging algorithm to specify the state of the ionosphere throughout. The growth rates are used to estimate mean amplitudes for the irregularities, and these mean amplitudes are compared with observations of the scintillation indices S-4 and sigma(phi) by calculating the linear correlation coefficients between them. The scintillation data are recorded by GPS L1 band receivers stationed at high northern latitudes. A total of 13 days are analyzed, covering four separate magnetic storm periods. These results are compared with those from a similar model of the gradient drift instability (GDI) growth rate. Overall, the results show better correlation between the GDI process and the scintillation indices than for the turbulence process and the scintillation indices. Two storms, however, show approximately equally good correlations for both processes, indicating that there might be times when the turbulence process of irregularity formation on plasma patches may be the controlling one.

Impact of equatorial ionospheric irregularities on GNSS receivers using real and synthetic scintillation signals

The impact of L-band equatorial ionospheric scintillation on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers is investigated in this paper using both real and synthetic scintillation data. To this end, various low-latitude data sets, recorded during the most recent solar maximum, are exploited in post-processing to develop and verify realistic simulation tools and evaluate GNSS receiver performance. A scintillation simulation model is implemented based on the phase screen formulation of Dr. Charles Rino (1979, 1982, and 2011) which allows oblique signal propagation in an anisotropic propagation medium with multiple irregularity layers (or phase screens) for multiple GNSS frequencies. The observed real scintillation parameters are used to drive GNSS signal simulations. The subsequent simulated GNSS signal time series are verified through comparison with real data for different signal tracking states including the most severe and challenging tracking scenarios. Using both real and synthetic data sets, the impact of scintillation on observation quality and receiver performance is evaluated in terms of probability of loss of phase and frequency lock, as well as the correlation of disturbed L-band signals transmitted by GNSS satellites on the same transionsopheric path.

Identification of scintillation signatures on GPS signals originating from plasma structures detected with EISCAT incoherent scatter radar along the same line of sight

Abstract Ionospheric scintillation originates from the scattering of electromagnetic waves through spatial gradients in the plasma density distribution, drifting across a given propagation direction. Ionospheric scintillation represents a disruptive manifestation of adverse space weather conditions through degradation of the reliability and continuity of satellite telecommunication and navigation systems and services (e.g., European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, EGNOS). The purpose of the experiment presented here was to determine the contribution of auroral ionization structures to GPS scintillation. European Incoherent Scatter (EISCAT) measurements were obtained along the same line of sight of a given GPS satellite observed from Tromso and followed by means of the EISCAT UHF radar to causally identify plasma structures that give rise to scintillation on the co‐aligned GPS radio link. Large‐scale structures associated with the poleward edge of the ionospheric trough, with auroral arcs in the nightside auroral oval and with particle precipitation at the onset of a substorm were indeed identified as responsible for enhanced phase scintillation at L band. For the first time it was observed that the observed large‐scale structures did not cascade into smaller‐scale structures, leading to enhanced phase scintillation without amplitude scintillation. More measurements and theory are necessary to understand the mechanism responsible for the inhibition of large‐scale to small‐scale energy cascade and to reproduce the observations. This aspect is fundamental to model the scattering of radio waves propagating through these ionization structures. New insights from this experiment allow a better characterization of the impact that space weather can have on satellite telecommunications and navigation services.