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We present space and ground-based multi-instrument observations demonstrating the impact of the 2022 Tonga volcanic eruption on dayside equatorial electrodynamics. A strong counter electrojet (CEJ) was observed by Swarm and ground-based magnetometers on 15 January after the Tonga eruption and during the recovery phase of a moderate geomagnetic storm. Swarm also observed an enhanced equatorial electrojet (EEJ) preceding the CEJ in the previous orbit. The observed EEJ and CEJ exhibited complex spatiotemporal variations. We combine them with the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) neutral wind measurements to disentangle the potential mechanisms. Our analysis indicates that the geomagnetic storm had minimal impact; instead, a large-scale atmospheric disturbance propagating eastward from the Tonga eruption site was the most likely driver for the observed intensiYcation and directional reversal of the equatorial electrojet. The CEJ was associated with strong eastward zonal winds in the E-region ionosphere, as a direct response to the lower atmosphere forcing.

In this paper the daytime vertical E → × B → drift velocity in the F-region of the equatorial ionosphere was estimated from the magnetic effect of the equatorial electrojet (EEJ) in West African sector for September equinoxes in 1993 during solar cycle 22 and in 2013 during solar cycle 24. Geomagnetic data recorded during the International Equatorial Electrojet Year (IEEY) from 1993 to 1994 and the ongoing AMBER (African Meridian B-field Education and Research) program since 2008 were used. The vertical drift velocity was inferred from the EEJ contribution ( Δ H ) in the geomagnetic field horizontal component. The IEEY data were used to examine the seasonal variations of the daytime vertical drift velocity. The noontime seasonal averages are Vd = 10.95 m / s and Vd = 9.46 m / s respectively for March and September equinoxes, and Vd = 8.75 m / s and Vd = 8.27 m / s for December and June solstices. The daytime vertical drift velocity was found to be larger in equinoxes than in solstices. The dependence of the daytime vertical drift velocity on solar cycle was also shown by comparing the results of September equinox in 1993 and 2013. The drift velocity of 9.5 m/s in 1993 is significantly weaker than that of 24.5 m/s in 2013. This strong difference in Vd reflects the level of solar cycle between 1993 when the mean F10.7 = 109.86 sfu and 2013 when the mean F10.7 = 122.55 sfu.

We considered wave disturbances of the Pi2 type geomagnetic field (periods of 1–2 min) recorded simultaneously by magnetometers at low-latitude stations in Africa and on low-orbit SWARM satellites both during the beginning of a substorm and in non-substorm periods. At night, Pi2 waves in the upper ionosphere and on Earth are almost identical in amplitude and in phase. These waves on the satellite mainly manifest themselves in longitudinal (along the geomagnetic field) and radial magnetic components. A comparison of the observational results with the model of the interaction of MHD waves with the ionosphere–atmosphere–Earth system shows that night low-latitude Pi2 signals are generated by magnetospheric fast magnetosonic waves propagating to the Earth through the opacity region. The results of analytical estimates and numerical simulations are consistent with the properties of Pi2 signals recorded in the upper ionosphere and on Earth.

International audience; On 21-22 June 2015, three consecutive interplanetary shocks slammed into the Earth's magnetosphere. Immediately after the third shock at 18:36 UT on 22 June, marked by an exceptional sudden storm commencement with an amplitude of Delta SYM-H = similar to 106 nT, a major geomagnetic storm commenced. In the present study, a multi-instrument approach comprising observations, data analysis, and modeling is used to examine the global ionospheric response. Results show that enhanced storm time processes produced major total electron content (TEC) variations at different latitudes, longitudes, and phases of the storm. A closer inspection of the TEC observations reveals strong longitudinal and hemispherical asymmetry. In addition, multiple equatorward and poleward propagating traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) were detected in the TEC data. Equatorward propagating TIDs are consistent with vertical neutral winds simulated from Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Electrodynamics General Circulation Model; however, poleward TIDs were not reproduced in the model. We find that a combination of driving processes including enhanced high-latitude injection, prompt penetration electric fields, disturbance dynamo effect, neutral winds, and composition changes were acting at different stages of the storm

The Earth's ionosphere/thermosphere (I/T) system exhibits complicated weather variability that can have adverse effects on human operations and systems, and consequently, there is a need for both accurate and reliable specifications and forecasts for this region. As part of the international effort to evaluate and assess the predictive capabilities of space weather models, four working groups for the I/T system have been created with the goal to devise a concerted model validation effort for the I/T environment. This paper presents an overview of the team efforts and reports on the progress made. As a first step, the working teams have selected to limit the validation efforts to critical I/T parameters that include total electron content, the peak density and height of the ionospheric F region, ionospheric scintillations, and thermospheric neutral densities. As part of this effort, initial lists of participating models and events have been constructed and validation data sets have been identified. In the future appropriate metrics will be selected for the various user and scientific needs.

GNSS signals are critically important for a wide range of commercial, military, and science applications. Recent studies have identified threats to the performance of GNSS from both intended and unintended sources of radio frequency interference (RFI). Understanding the distribution of the sources of RFI and the nature of the signals they are emitting is critical to determine and mitigate their effects on the measurements made by GNSS receivers. Terrestrial RFI can be substantially detrimental to the received GNSS signals, affecting the interpretation of related science measurements. NASA's Blackjack/TriG GNSS receivers are used for precise-orbit determination and radio occultation measurements, providing a data record spanning most of the Earth’s surface for nearly 20 years. We have developed a highly sensitive detection algorithm which uses variations in the measured signal to noise ratio (SNR), on the order of 10-50 seconds, common to all satellites to identify times and locations subject to RFI. Initial work has focused primarily on detection of the presence of RFI and using the receiver’s orbital solution to record the location of detection events. Our inter-mission analysis creates a unique record of global RFI with the potential for a) rigorous detection of the presence of interfering signals during science measurements, b) geolocation of RFI sources, and c) characterization of the nature of the transmitted signal to better identify intent. Preliminary analysis has shown the presence of RFI is well correlated with regional conflicts and other geopolitical activity.

Data from ionosonde and GPS total electron content (TEC) observations reveal a number of ionospheric phenomena that occurred in response to the total solar eclipse on 21 August 2017 over North America. The eclipse started over the US west coast at ∼16:00 UTC (08:00 LT) and ended over the US east coast at ∼20:00 UTC (15:00 LT). We identify the growth of plasma density irregularities and turbulence on the bottomside ionosphere during the eclipse totality (at ∼10:34 LT over the Idaho station), signified by the distinct appearance of spread-F echoes in the ionosonde data. These spread-F echoes appeared in both O-mode and X-mode traces, and they lasted for approximately 10 minutes. Preceding the appearance of the spread echoes, an uplift of the ionospheric F-layer and steepening of the bottomside ionospheric density gradient were seen in the ionosonde data. In addition, data from the ionosonde observations also show some characteristic signatures of traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) at ∼300 km altitude during the eclipse. The TIDs in the ionosonde observations were observed roughly 30 minutes after the time of maximum eclipse, and they have a wave periodicity of approximately 10 minutes. In other words, these TIDs were in the wake of the eclipse totality (lagging behind the umbra), and the wave period was shorter than the medium-scale or short-scale TIDs typically seen in the GPS TEC data. Finally, large reductions in TEC and ionospheric plasma densities (by 33%–45%) as a response to the eclipse were observed in both the GPS TEC and ionosonde data. The ionospheric density in the ionospheric E-region reached minimum roughly at the same time as the maximum eclipse, while the ionospheric F-region density and GPS TEC reached minimum 20–30 minutes after the maximum eclipse.

Modelling the Earth's ionospheric characteristics is the focal task for the ionospheric community to mitigate its effect on the radio communication, and satellite navigation. However, several aspects of modelling are still challenging, for example, the storm time characteristics. This paper presents modelling efforts of TEC taking into account solar and geomagnetic activity, time of the day and day of the year using neural networks (NNs) modelling technique. The NNs have been designed with GPS-TEC measured data from low and mid-latitude GPS stations. The training was conducted using the data obtained for the period from 2011 to 2014. The model prediction accuracy was evaluated using data of year 2015. The model results show that diurnal and seasonal trend of the GPS-TEC is well reproduced by the model for the two stations. The seasonal characteristics of GPS-TEC is compared with NN and NeQuick 2 models prediction when the latter one is driven by the monthly average value of solar flux. It is found that NN model performs better than the corresponding NeQuick 2 model for low latitude region. For the mid-latitude both NN and NeQuick 2 models reproduce the average characteristics of TEC variability quite successfully. An attempt of one day ahead forecast of TEC at the two locations has been made by introducing as drivers previous day solar flux and geomagnetic index values. The results show that a reasonable day ahead forecast of local TEC can be achieved.

This paper presents independent multi-instrument observations that address the physical mechanisms of how ultralow-frequency (ULF) wave-associated electric fields initiate ionospheric density fluctuation and scintillation at the equator. Since the magnetic field at the equator is entirely embedded in a relatively high-collision and high-conductivity medium, the condition may not be possible for the geomagnetic field to fluctuate due to ULF wave activity. This implies that the fluctuating electric field at the equator may not be produced through equatorial dynamo action due to fluctuating magnetic fields. Instead, the electric field penetrates from high latitudes and produces fluctuating magnetic field as well as modulates the vertical drift and hence causes the density to fluctuate at the equatorial region. We demonstrate this by estimating the ULF associated fluctuating electric field at high latitudes and at the equatorial region by applying the appropriate attenuation factor as it penetrates to lower latitudes. The periodicity of both electric field and density fluctuations appears to be between 6 and 9 min, which is a typical period of ULF waves in the Pc5 range. Because of its large amplitude and long periods compared to other ULF wave frequency bands, the Pc5 wave-associated electric field, which can even be estimated using magnetograms with low sensitivity and low sampling rate (e.g., 1 min), can easily penetrate to the lower latitude region and produce significant ionospheric density fluctuations that can be strong enough to create scintillation at the equatorial region.

The occurrence of geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) poses serious threats to modern technological infrastructure. Large GICs result from sharp variations of the geomagnetic field (dB/dt) caused by changes of large-scale magnetospheric and ionospheric currents. Intense dB/dt perturbations are known to occur often in high-latitude regions as a result of storm time substorms. Magnetospheric compressions usually caused by interplanetary shocks increase the magnetopause current leading to dB/dt perturbations more evident in midlatitude to low-latitude regions, while they increase the equatorial electrojet current leading to dB/dt perturbations in dayside equatorial regions. We investigate the effects of shock impact angles and speeds on the subsequent dB/dt perturbations with a database of 547 shocks observed at the L1 point. By adopting the threshold of dB/dt = 100 nT/min, identified as a risk factor to power systems, we find that dB/dt generally surpasses this threshold when following impacts of high-speed and nearly frontal shocks in dayside high-latitude locations. The same trend occurs at lower latitudes and for all nightside events but with fewer high-risk events. Particularly, we found nine events in equatorial locations with dB/dt > 100 nT/min. All events were caused by high-speed and nearly frontal shock impacts and were observed by stations located around noon local time. These high-risk perturbations were caused by sudden strong and symmetric magnetospheric compressions, more effectively intensifying the equatorial electrojet current, leading to sharp dB/dt perturbations. We suggest that these results may provide insights for GIC forecasting aiming at preventing degradation of power systems due to GICs.

This paper discusses the ionosphere's response to the largest storm of solar cycle 24 during 16–18 March 2015. We have used the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) total electron content dat ...

The confluence of recent instrumentation deployments in Africa with developments for the determination of plasmasphere electron content using Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers has provided new opportunities for investigations in that region. This investigation, using a selected chain of GPS stations, extends the method (SCORPION) previously applied to a chain of GPS stations in North America in order to separate the ionosphere and plasmasphere contributions to the total electron content (TEC) during a day (24 July) in 2011. The results span latitudes from the southern tip of Africa, across the Equator, to the southern Arabian Peninsula, providing a continuous latitudinal profile for both the ionosphere and plasmasphere during this day.The peak diurnal vertical ionosphere electron content (IEC) increases from about 14 TEC units (1 TEC unit = 1016 electrons m−2) at the southernmost station to about 32 TEC units near the geographic equator, then decreases to about 28 TEC units at the Arabian Peninsula. The peak diurnal slant plasmasphere electron content (PEC) varies between about 4 and 7 TEC units among the stations, with a local latitudinal profile that is significantly influenced by the viewing geometry at the station location, relative to the magnetic field configuration. In contrast, the peak vertical PEC varies between about 1 and 6 TEC units among the stations, with a more uniform latitudinal variation.Comparisons to other GPS data analyses are also presented for TEC, indicating the influence of the PEC on the determination of latitudinal TEC variations and also on the absolute TEC levels, by inducing an overestimate of the receiver bias. The derived TEC latitudinal profiles, in comparison to global map profiles, tend to differ from the map results only about as much as the map results differ among themselves. A combination of ionosonde IEC and alternative GPS TEC measurements, which in principle permits a PEC determination through their difference, was compared to the composite and separate ionosphere and plasmasphere contributions derived solely by the SCORPION method for one station. Although there is considerably more scatter in the PEC values derived from the difference of the GPS TEC and ionosonde IEC measurements compared to the PEC values derived by the SCORPION method, the average overhead values for this day are comparable for the two methods, near 2 TEC units, at the South African site examined.This initial investigation provides a basis for day-to-day TEC monitoring for Africa, with separate ionosphere and plasmasphere electron content determinations.

In this work, we investigated the veracity of an ion continuity equation in controlling equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) morphology using total electron content (TEC) of 22 GPS receivers and three ground-based magnetometers (Magnetic Data Acquisition System, MAGDAS) over Africa and the Middle East (Africa–Middle East) during the quietest periods. Apart from further confirmation of the roles of equatorial electrojet (EEJ) and integrated equatorial electrojet (IEEJ) in determining hemispheric extent of EIA crest over higher latitudes, we found some additional roles played by thermospheric meridional neutral wind. Interestingly, the simultaneous observations of EIA crests in both hemispheres of Africa–Middle East showed different morphology compared to that reported over Asia. We also observed interesting latitudinal twin EIA crests domiciled at the low latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Our results further showed that weak EEJ strength associated with counter electrojet (CEJ) during sunrise hours could also trigger twin EIA crests over higher latitudes.

The response of equatorial ionosphere to the magnetospheric origin DP 2 current system fluctuations is examined using ground-based multiinstrument observations. The interaction between the solar wind and fluctuations of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) Bz, penetrates nearly instantaneously to the dayside equatorial region at all longitudes and modulates the electrodynamics that governs the equatorial density distributions. In this paper, using magnetometers at high and equatorial latitudes, we demonstrate that the quasiperiodic DP 2 current system penetrates to the equator and causes the dayside equatorial electrojet (EEJ) and the independently measured ionospheric drift velocity to fluctuate coherently with the high-latitude DP 2 current as well as with the IMF Bz component. At the same time, radar observations show that the ionospheric density layers move up and down, causing the density to fluctuate up and down coherently with the EEJ and IMF Bz.

This paper investigates a technique to estimate near-real-time electron density structure of the ionosphere. Ground-based GPS receiver total electron content (TEC) at low and high latitudes has been used to assist the NeQuick 2 model. First, we compute model input (effective ionization level) when the modeled slant TEC (sTEC) best fits the measured sTEC by single GPS receiver (reference station). Then we run the model at different locations nearby the reference station and produce the spatial distribution of the density profiles of the ionosphere in the East African region. We investigate the performance of the model, before and after data ingestion in estimating the topside ionosphere density profiles. This is carried out by extracting in situ density from the model at the corresponding location of C/NOFS (Communication/Navigation Outage Forecast System) satellite orbit and comparing the modeled ion density with the in situ ion density observed by Planar Langmuir Probe onboard C/NOFS. It is shown that the performance of the model after data ingestion reproduces the topside ionosphere better up to about 824 km away from the reference station than that before adaptation. Similarly, for high-latitude region, NeQuick 2 adapted to sTEC obtained from high-latitude (Tromso in Norway) GPS receiver and the model used to reproduce parameters measured by European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association (EISCAT) VHF radar. It is shown that the model after adaptation shows considerable improvement in estimating EISCAT measurements of electron density profile, F2 peak density, and height.

An analysis of the occurrence of equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) around the world during the 2015 St. Patrick's Day geomagnetic storm is presented. A network of 12 Global Positioning System receivers spanning from South America to Southeast Asia was used, in addition to colocated VHF receivers at three stations and four nearby ionosondes. The suppression of postsunset EPBs was observed across most longitudes over 2 days. The EPB observations were compared to calculations of the linear Rayleigh-Taylor growth rate using coupled thermosphere-ionosphere modeling, which successfully modeled the transition of favorable EPB growth from postsunset to postmidnight hours during the storm. The mechanisms behind the growth of postmidnight EPBs during this storm were investigated. While the latter stages of postmidnight EPB growth were found to be dominated by disturbance dynamo effects, the initial stages of postmidnight EPB growth close to local midnight were found to be controlled by the higher altitudes of the plasma (i.e., the gravity term). Modeling and observations revealed that during the storm the ionospheric plasma was redistributed to higher altitudes in the low-latitude region, which made the plasma more susceptible to Rayleigh-Taylor growth prior to the dominance of the disturbance dynamo in the eventual generation of postmidnight EPBs.

The variability of the solar activity dominates the variability of the earth's atmosphere, which affects human life and technology on earth. To understand the effects of solar activity on earth's atmosphere different efforts are underway to model the variations of total solar irradiance (TSI) associated to the variations of photometric sunspot index (PSI) and core to wing ratio of Mg II index, for example, linear regression approach. In this study, feed-forward neural networks (NNs) algorithm, which takes the non-linear relationship between the dependent and independent variables, has been implemented to model daily TSI using PSI and Mg II index. First, data between 1978 and 2008 have been used to train and validate NNs, through which the parameters such as weights and biases are estimated. Therefore, NNs has been used to predict TSI between the years 2008 and 2013 from test data. The output of NNs have been compared with PMOD composite TSI and result has shown good agreement. Linear correlation between NNs predicted TSI and PMOD composite is found to be about 0.9307 for the years between 1978 and 2013. This means that NNs predicted TSI from solar proxies explains about 86.6% of the variance of TSI for solar cycles 21–24, and over 90% during solar cycle 23. Predicting TSI using NNs further strengthens the view that surface magnetism indeed plays a dominant role in modulating solar irradiance.

Geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) caused by interplanetary shocks represent a serious space weather threat to modern technological infrastructure. The arrival of interplanetary shocks drives magnetosphere and ionosphere current systems, which then induce electric currents at ground level. The impact of these currents at high latitudes has been extensively researched, but the magnetic equator has been largely overlooked. In this paper, we investigate the potential effects of interplanetary shocks on the equatorial region and demonstrate that their magnetic signature is amplified by the equatorial electrojet. This local amplification substantially increases the region's susceptibility to GICs. Importantly, this result applies to both geomagnetic storms and quiet periods and thus represents a paradigm shift in our understanding of adverse space weather impacts on technological infrastructure.

This paper presents first observations of poleward traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) during strong geomagnetic conditions over the African sector. By analyzing different data sets we have observed both positive and negative ionospheric responses during the storm period of 08–10 March 2012. Considering the African region as a whole, three longitudinal sectors were strategically selected to establish the entire regional response. On both sides of the geomagnetic equator, results show poleward shift in peak total electron content (TEC) enhancements/depletions at different times which are associated to large-scale TIDs. The observed phenomena are linked to the global ionospheric response and electrodynamics. The understanding has been established using data from International GNSS Service receiver network, radio occultation electron density profiles, derived E×B drift measurements from magnetometer observations and regional ground-based and satellite data. Contrary to other related studies, generated regional TEC perturbation maps were not enough to show obvious directions of the large-scale TIDs due to insufficient data over the northern hemispheric part of the African sector. There appears to be a switch between positive and negative storm phases during the same storm period especially in the Southern Hemisphere part of the African region where “enough” data were available. However, a detailed analysis revealed that the positive storm phase corresponded to the expansion of the equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) toward some parts of midlatitude regions (and possibly with the contribution from low-latitude electrodynamics associated to equatorial electrojet), while the other part recorded a negative storm phase due to storm-induced changes from the auroral origin. We have observed a simultaneous occurrence of both poleward and equatorward propagating TIDs over the African sector during the same geomagnetic storm period. Our results show that short-lived large-scale TIDs are possibly launched by the equatorial electrojet, while the EIA expansion contributes (through modulation) to the poleward propagation of the disturbances. Temporal variation of TEC perturbations on a storm day over the entire African sector showed the existence of large-scale TIDs during the main and recovery phases which can travel poleward up to 20° latitude. The amplitudes of the TIDs have range ±2 total electron content unit, 1 TECU = 1016 el m−2, period of 2 h and virtual velocities of 250 ± 59–750 ± 95 m/s in midlatitude regions and up to 990 ± 65 m/s within the EIA region.

The equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA), inferred from the electron density profile, was used to study the ionospheric effect of 11 March 2011, 06 April 2011, 09 March 2012 and 01 October 2012 geomagnetic storms in the East African sector. The electron density profile was reconstructed from slant total electron content (sTEC) measurements using statistical linear inversion method. The sTEC measurements were recorded by a chain of ten ground-based GPS receivers deployed in the East African region in the latitude range of 6° S–20° N GeoLat (15.29° S–10.62° N geomagnetic latitude). The analysis of the effect of the storms on the EIA has demonstrated that the effect could be positive or negative. The sudden positive effects of the EIA, in terms of increasing the peak and widening the width, during storm events of 06 April 2011, 09 March 2012 and 01 October 2012 were observed dominantly due to prompt penetration electric fields to the magnetic equator, which were caused by a southward turning of the interplanetary magnetic field ( B z ). The prolonged effects after the onset of the storm were attributed to disturbance dynamo electric field due to the storm-time neutral wind circulation. The depletion on the electron density profile during 11 March 2011 storm was due to a decrease in [O] to [ N 2 ] ratio in the thermosphere composition.

During stratospheric sudden warming (SSW) periods large changes in the low-latitude vertical drift have been observed at Jicamarca as well as in other longitudinal sectors. In general, a strengthening of the daytime maximum vertical drift with a shift from prenoon to the afternoon is observed. During the January 2013 stratospheric warming significant longitudinal differences in the equatorial vertical drift were observed. At Jicamarca the previously reported SSW behavior prevails; however, no shift of the daytime maximum drift was exhibited in the African sector. Using the National Center for Atmospheric Research thermosphere-ionosphere-mesosphere electrodynamics general circulation model (TIME-GCM) the possible causes for the longitudinal difference are examined. The timing of the strong SSW effect in the vertical drift (15–20 January) coincides with moderate geomagnetic activity. The simulation indicates that approximately half of the daytime vertical drift increase in the American sector may be related to the moderate geophysical conditions (Kp = 4) with the effect being negligible in the African sector. The simulation suggests that the wind dynamo accounts for approximately 50% of the daytime vertical drift in the American sector and almost 100% in the African sector. The simulation agrees with previous findings that the migrating solar tides and the semidiurnal westward propagating tide with zonal wave number 1 (SW1) mainly contribute to the daytime wind dynamo and vertical drift. Numerical experiments suggest that the neutral wind and the geomagnetic main field contribute to the presence (absence) of a local time shift in the daytime maximum drift in the American (African) sector.

We present the characteristics of the EIA in the East African sector inferred from ground-based GPS receivers via ionospheric tomography during the year 2012. For the analysis, we developed and used a 2D ionospheric tomography imaging software based on Bayesian inversion approach. To reconstruct ionospheric electron density form slant Total Electron Content (sTEC) measurements, we selected a chain of ten ground-based GPS receivers with stations’ codes and geomagnetic coordinates: ARMI ( 3.03 ° S , 109.29 ° E ), DEBK ( 4.32 ° N , 109.48 ° E ), ASOS ( 1.14 ° N , 106.16 ° E ), NEGE ( 3.60 ° S , 111.35 ° E ), SHIS ( 3.26 ° N , 110.62 ° E ), ASAB ( 4.91 ° N , 114.34 ° E ), SHEB ( 7.36 ° N , 110.60 ° E ), EBBE ( 9.54 ° S , 104.10 ° E ), DODM ( 16.03 ° S , 109.04 ° E ) & NAMA ( 11.49 ° N , 113.60 ° E ). The temporal, spatial and storm-time characteristics of the EIA and the hourly, day-to-day and seasonal variations of the maximum electron density of F2 region (NmF2) at 15.29°S geomagnetic latitude are presented. We found that the magnitude of the peak and the width/thickness of the EIA pronounced during the equinox and weakened during the solstice seasons at 2100 LT. It is also observed that the EIA persisted for longer time in equinox season than the solstice season. The spatial appearance of the northern and southern anomalies are observed starting from 6.12 ° N and 10 ° S respectively along geomagnetic latitude during equinox season. The EIA is localized between 180 km and 450 km along the altitude during December solstice. The analysis on the NmF2 demonstrated a significant dependence on local time, day and season of the year. We also investigated the storm response of the EIA for the magnetic storm of Day Of the Year (DOY) 274–276. It is observed that the disturbance dynamo related composition change (O/N2 ratio) resulted in a well-developed EIA with an increase in the peak and the width of the EIA at 2100 LT on DOY 275 (main phase of the storm) compared to 274 (initial phase of the storm) and 276 (recovery phase of the storm).

The study of variations in total solar irradiance (TSI) and spectral irradiance is important for understanding how the Sun affects the Earth’s climate. A data-driven approach is used in this article to analyze and model the temporal variation of the TSI and Mg ii index back to 1947. In both cases, observed data in the time interval of the satellite era, 1978 – 2013, were used for neural network (NN) model-design and testing. For this particular purpose, the evolution of the solar magnetic field is assumed to be the main driver for the day-to-day irradiance variability. First, we design a model for the Mg ii index data from F10.7 cm solar radio-flux using the NN approach in the time span of 1978 through 2013. Results of Mg ii index model were tested using various numbers of hidden nodes. The predicted values of the hidden layer with five nodes correspond well to the composite Mg ii values. The model reproduces 94% of the variability in the composite Mg ii index, including the secular decline between the 1996 and 2008 solar cycle minima. Finally, the extrapolation of the Mg ii index was performed using the developed model from F10.7 cm back to 1947. Similarly, the NN model was designed for TSI variability study over the time span of the satellite era using data from the Physikalisch-Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos (PMOD) as a target, and solar activity indices as model inputs. This model was able to reproduce the daily irradiance variations with a correlation coefficient of 0.937 from sunspot and facular measurements in the time span of 1978 – 2013. Finally, the temporal variation of the TSI was analyzed using the designed NN model back to 1947 from the Photometric Sunspot Index (PSI) and the extrapolated Mg ii index. The extrapolated TSI result indicates that the amplitudes of Solar Cycles 19 and 21 are closely comparable to each other, and Solar Cycle 20 appears to be of lower irradiance during its maximum.

The feasibility of predicting the daily occurrence of Global Positioning System scintillation events using forecasts of common geophysical indices to drive a physics-based model of the system is demonstrated over a 5 month period for the African and Asian longitude sectors. The output from the Wing Kp model, which uses solar wind data to predict the geomagnetic activity level up to 4 h in advance, was used to drive the National Center for Atmospheric Research thermosphere/ionosphere model, from which the strength of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability growth rate was calculated to determine the likelihood of scintillation. It is found that the physics-based model demonstrates superior skill to an empirical scintillation model (Wideband Model (WBMOD)) in forecasting scintillation suppression events during seasons when scintillation is common. However, neither of the models driven in this way possess the ability to forecast isolated scintillation events during transitional and off-peak seasons.