Premium
Evaluation of six ionospheric models as predictors of total electron content
Author(s) -
Brown Lincoln D.,
Daniell Robert E.,
Fox Matthew W.,
Klobuchar John A.,
Doherty Patricia H.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
radio science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1944-799X
pISSN - 0048-6604
DOI - 10.1029/91rs00513
Subject(s) - tec , total electron content , ionosphere , international reference ionosphere , space weather , electron density , latitude , atmospheric sciences , environmental science , geology , geodesy , physics , electron , geophysics , quantum mechanics
We have gathered total electron content (TEC) data from a range of mid‐latitudes and low latitudes and longitudes for a wide range of solar activity. This data was used to evaluate the performance of six publicly available ionospheric models as predictors of total electron content. TEC is important for correcting modern DoD space systems, which propagate radio waves from the earth to satellites, for time delay effects of the ionosphere. The TEC data were obtained from polarimeter receivers located in North America, the Pacific, and the East coast of Asia. The ionospheric models evaluated are (1) the International Reference Ionosphere, (2) the Bent model, (3) the Ionospheric Conductivity and Electron Density model, (4) the Penn State model, (5) the Fully Analytic Ionospheric Model, and (6) a hybrid model consisting of the Union Radio Scientifique Internationale 88 (URSI‐88) coefficients coupled with the Damen‐Hartranft profile model. We will present extensive comparisons between monthly median TEC and model TEC obtained by integrating electron density profiles produced by the six models. These comparisons demonstrate that although most of the models do very well at representing ƒ 0 F 2 , none of them do very well with TEC, probably because of inaccurate representation of the topside profile. We suggest that one approach to obtaining better representations of TEC is the use of ƒ 0 F 2 from the CCIR or URSI‐88 coefficients coupled with a good climatological slab thickness model.