Team title: Ionosphere Plasma Density: NmF2/foF2, hmF2, TEC
Team ID: G2B-05
Team Leads:
Ioanna Tsagouri (National Observatory of Athens, Greece), tsagouri@noa.gr
Keywords (impact): Navigation and/or Communications
Keywords (activity type): Understanding , Requirements , Modeling, Assessment
Introduction:
The Earth’s ionosphere poses many challenges for engineering systems that make use of signal transmission through all or some portion of the medium, such as satellite and High Frequency (HF) geolocation and communication operations. In this respect, the accurate modeling of the 3-D electron density in special temporal and spatial scales became a critical requirement for both the design and operation of these systems. As a response to the requirements, today a variety of ionospheric prediction models is available to address the needs for different types of products (i.e., long-term predictions, nowcasts and forecasts) and different spatial scales (i.e., local, regional, global). As the needs are dynamically evolved, the number of available models is increased to make their effective exploitation in both scientific and operational applications a challenging task. Among others, it depends strongly on the documentation of the models' prediction ability with respect to user s' requirements. In this context, the systematic assessment of the ionospheric models' performance remains a task of strategic importance within space weather community.
Objectives:
The Ionosphere Plasma Density team aims at the quantitative assessment of the modeling capabilities of the 3-D electron density distribution. Key elements of the work plan include quantities that characterize the conditions in the layer of maximum ionospheric ionization F2 (i.e. foF2 and hmF2), as well as the total electron content (TEC, local). In this framework, strategic goals of the team are:
• Discussion and better understanding of the users' needs for different spatial and temporal scales
• Establish a set of community agreed metrics that address specific user needs
• Evaluation of existing ionospheric modeling capabilities based on the selected metrics to provide a benchmark against which future models can be assessed
Action topics:
- Assessment of modeling capability of local TEC on different spatial and temporal scales,
- Assessment of modeling capability of plasma density and temperature profiles
Publications:
- Shim, J. S., Song, I. S., Jee, G., Kwak, Y. S., Tsagouri, I., Goncharenko, L., ... & Habarulema, J. B. (2023). Validation of Ionospheric Specifications During Geomagnetic Storms: TEC and foF2 During the 2013 March Storm Event‐II. Space Weather, 21(5), e2022SW003388, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022SW003388.
- Scherliess, L., Tsagouri, I., Yizengaw, E., Bruinsma, S., Shim, J. S., Coster, A., & Retterer, J. M. (2019). The International Community Coordinated Modeling Center space weather modeling capabilities assessment: Overview of ionosphere/thermosphere activities. Space Weather, 17(4), 527-538, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018SW002036.
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Shim, J. S., Tsagouri, I., Goncharenko, L., Rastaetter, L., Kuznetsova, M., Bilitza, D., ... & Zhu, L. (2018). Validation of ionospheric specifications during geomagnetic storms: TEC and foF2 during the 2013 March storm event. Space Weather, 16(11), 1686-1701, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018SW002034.
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Tsagouri, I., Goncharenko, L., Shim, J. S., Belehaki, A., Buresova, D., & Kuznetsova, M. M. (2018). Assessment of current capabilities in modeling the ionospheric climatology for space weather applications: foF2 and hmF2. Space Weather, 16(12), 1930-1945, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018SW002035.
