Predictability of Large Scale Travelling Ionospheric Disturbances During Ionosphere Storm Conditions

Abstract

The conditions in the thermosphere and ionosphere are impacting many technological systems like global navigation systems and satellite orbit prediction and the performance of satellite communication links. Therefore, appropriate monitoring and prediction of disturbances is very important. Especially during the passage of disturbances in the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field, large amounts of energy are transferred into the Earth system and the thermosphere-ionosphere system gets severely disturbed. Strong electric fields and sudden intensive thermosphere heating in the auroral region are major forces driving significant changes in the thermosphere-ionosphere system. A typical phenomenon during these storm conditions are large scale atmospheric gravity waves, which are generated by the heating processes in the auroral region and propagate equatorward. Because they are carrying energy and momentum, they are supposed to play an important role in the generation of storm time ionosphere disturbances on a global scale. Commonly, these large-scale atmospheric gravity waves are measured and analysed via their ionosphere signature, the Large Scale Travelling Ionospheric Disturbances (LSTIDs). There exist more than two decades of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data from hundreds of ground stations, which are used for statistical analysis. Here, we are presenting correlation studies of LSTIDs with solar wind and geomagnetic activity parameters and demonstrate their predictability for the European region.