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Long‐duration depletion in the topside ionospheric total electron content during the recovery phase of the March 2015 strong storm
Author(s) -
Zhong Jiahao,
Wang Wenbin,
Yue Xinan,
Burns Alan G.,
Dou Xiankang,
Lei Jiuhou
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-9402
pISSN - 2169-9380
DOI - 10.1002/2016ja022469
Subject(s) - tec , geomagnetic storm , total electron content , ionosphere , storm , atmospheric sciences , local time , daytime , evening , plasmasphere , environmental science , geology , meteorology , geophysics , earth's magnetic field , physics , magnetosphere , astronomy , statistics , plasma , mathematics , quantum mechanics , magnetic field
Abstract Topside ionospheric total electron content (TEC) observations from multiple low‐Earth orbit (LEO) satellites have been used to investigate the local time, altitudinal, and longitudinal dependence of the topside ionospheric storm effect during both the main and recovery phases of the March 2015 geomagnetic storm. The results of this study show, for the first time, that there was a persistent topside TEC depletion that lasted for more than 3 days after the storm main phase at most longitudes, except in the Pacific Ocean region, where the topside TECs during the storm recovery phase were comparable to the quiet time ones. The observed depletion in the topside ionospheric TEC was relatively larger at higher altitudes in the evening sector and greater at local times closer to midnight. Moreover, the topside TEC patterns observed by MetOp‐A (832 km) were different from those seen by other LEO satellites with lower orbital altitudes during the storm main phase and at the beginning of the recovery phase, especially in the evening sector. This suggests that the physical processes that control the storm time behavior of topside ionospheric response to storms are altitude‐dependent.