GPS scintillation effects associated with polar cap patches and substorm auroral activity: direct comparison

We directly compare the relative GPS scintillation levels associated with regions of enhanced plasma irregularities called auroral arcs, polar cap patches, and auroral blobs that frequently occur in the polar ionosphere. On January 13, 2013 from Ny-Ålesund, several polar cap patches were observed to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of space weather and space climate 2014, Vol.4, p.A23
Main Authors: Jin, Yaqi, Moen, Jøran I., Miloch, Wojciech J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aurora
Auroral activity
Auroral arcs
Auroral oval
Blobs
Climate
Global positioning systems
GPS
Ionosphere
Ionosphere (polar)
Irregularities
Patches (structures)
Polar cap
Polar caps
Polar ionosphere
Receivers & amplifiers
Satellites
Scintillation
Space weather
Standard deviation
Weather forecasting
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Summary:We directly compare the relative GPS scintillation levels associated with regions of enhanced plasma irregularities called auroral arcs, polar cap patches, and auroral blobs that frequently occur in the polar ionosphere. On January 13, 2013 from Ny-Ålesund, several polar cap patches were observed to exit the polar cap into the auroral oval, and were then termed auroral blobs. This gave us an unprecedented opportunity to compare the relative scintillation levels associated with these three phenomena. The blobs were associated with the strongest phase scintillation (σϕ), followed by patches and arcs, with σϕ up to 0.6, 0.5, and 0.1 rad, respectively. Our observations indicate that most patches in the nightside polar cap have produced significant scintillations, but not all of them. Since the blobs are formed after patches merged into auroral regions, in space weather predictions of GPS scintillations, it will be important to enable predictions of patches exiting the polar cap.
ISSN:2115-7251
2115-7251
DOI:10.1051/swsc/2014019