Operational Products of the Space Weather Application Center Ionosphere (SWACI) and capabilities of their use

Kurzfassung

The Space Weather Application Center Ionosphere (SWACI) established at DLR Neustrelitz is a project which is essentially supported by the German State Government of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Since the project will finish by the end of 2010, the talk will present the final version of data products provided by the SWACI service to registered customers. SWACI operates a powerful data processing system working both in real-time and post-processing modes in order to provide actual information to the registered customers (http://swaciweb.dlr.de). In this talk we will focus on describing transionospheric link related data products offered in near real time for operational use in various applications such as GNSS based navigation and positioning and radar techniques in remote sensing. Typical data products include European and global maps of the Total Electron Content (TEC) and corresponding derivatives such as latitudinal and longitudinal gradients and rate of change, updated every 5 minutes. Global TEC maps are generated by GPS data provided by the International GNSS Service (IGS) networks in the near-real-time streaming mode. Whereas near-real-time TEC maps help to correct range errors in navigation (e.g. range error for single frequency users) and remote sensing applications (e.g. correction of polarization plane rotation), high precision and safety of life applications need actual information on the perturbation degree of the ionosphere. Consequently, to fulfil practical needs, SWACI offers two product types. Scintillation activity characterizing small scale ionospheric irregularities (e.g. S4 index) is obtained along a Pan-European meridional chain of GPS stations with 1 minute update. Furthermore, SWACI provides a so-called Disturbance Ionosphere Index (DIX) which characterizes in particular medium and large scale ionospheric disturbances. Definition and use of this index is discussed. To inform potential users, web-presentation, data management and provision is briefly described. SWACI is already available for interested users at a service level reached so far. In favour of further improving the service, enhanced data exchange with SWENET is foreseen.