Monitoring of the ionospheric storm on 10/11 March 2011 over Europe and related impact on the Norwegian national positioning network CPOS

Kurzfassung

Ionospheric storms have the capability to degrade precise positioning services and affect Safety of Life (SoL) applications of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). Thus, near real time detection and forecasting of ionospheric storms might warn users to prevent misinterpretation of data in positioning and avoid hazardous misleading information (HMI) in SoL applications. In this talk we report the behaviour of ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) during the minor geomagnetic storm on 10-11 March 2011 observed via the Space Weather Application Center-Ionosphere (SWACI) of the German Aerospace Center and by using monitoring facilities of the Norwegian Mapping Authority. The relationships of ionospheric features with space weather factors such as solar irradiance, solar wind and geomagnetic activity are discussed. It has been found that storm pattern move from high to mid-latitudes during the storm. Preliminary attempts to forecast the TEC behaviour over Europe one hour ahead under perturbed conditions are discussed. The strength of ionospheric perturbation degree is estimated by using different methods. Thus, a preliminary version of a Disturbance Ionosphere indeX (DIX) generated by DLR and the I95 index generated by NMA while operating the Norwegian national positioning network CPOS, are compared in relation to GNSS network disturbances seen in CPOS. The disturbances are occurring in longitudinal bands, indicating a relation to the auroral oval, and significant disturbances are sometimes seen as far south as 60 degrees latitude.