Polar Electron Content From GPS Data-Based Global Ionospheric Maps: Assessment, Case Studies, and Climatology

The electron content distribution of the north and south polar ionosphere from 2001 to the beginning of 2019 is analyzed by using the UQRG global ionospheric map (GIM) of vertical total electron content (VTEC), computed every 15 min by UPC-IonSAT with a tomographic-kriging combined technique. We fir...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Hernández-Pajares, Manuel, Lyu, Haixia, Aragón-Ángel, Ángela, Monte-Moreno, Enric, Liu, Jingbin, An, Jiachun, Jiang, Hu
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/236703
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/236703
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Polar ionosphere
Global navigation satellite systems
Global ionospheric maps
Descripción
Sumario:The electron content distribution of the north and south polar ionosphere from 2001 to the beginning of 2019 is analyzed by using the UQRG global ionospheric map (GIM) of vertical total electron content (VTEC), computed every 15 min by UPC-IonSAT with a tomographic-kriging combined technique. We first show that the accuracy of UQRG GIM is slightly better than that of the GIMs of other analysis centers on the whole and also over both poles. Second, we show examples of polar VTEC features in UQRG GIM, previously reported by different authors and with higher-resolution techniques. Third, by means of an unsupervised clustering algorithm, learning vector quantization, we characterize the main features of the ionospheric electron content climatology, separately for the north and south polar regions.