Appropriate ionosphere perturbation indices for use cases in high latitudes

Abstract

Because the propagation of radio signals is sensitive to the electron density in the ionosphere, ionospheric perturbations are of great interest for applications using radio systems (e.g. GNSS and HF communication). Especially high latitudes are impacted by manifold ionospheric perturbations, which can have different characteristics. Their spatial range can vary between global and very local effects (e.g. a few hundreds of km range) and their temporal range varies between seconds and days. All these perturbations have different physical background and different impact on applications. Therefore, many ionosphere perturbation indices characterizing ionospheric perturbations have been introduced in the past (e.g. ROTI, S4, \sigma_\phi, AATR, Reff, W-index, SISTED, SOLERA, DIXSG, IBI, Dfu/Dfl, etc.). This presentation provides a summary overview on a subset of 19 ionospheric indices that were developed and/or applied in Europe. It points out, which indices are applicable for different use cases in science and industry in high latitudes and guides users to find the appropriate index for their purposes.