Monitoring, modelling and forecasting the total electron content of the ionosphere

Abstract

Signal propagation errors in GNSS are mainly caused by the electron density along the ray path (TEC) and its spatial and temporal variability. Dual frequency GNSS signals can effectively be used for ionospheric monitoring by ground and space based techniques which complete each other. Data base is permanently growing (ground stations, GNSS). Historical data base provides powerful data sets for developing TEC and electron density models, data gaps still w.r.t. scintillations. Pure physics based (forecast) models still unreliable. Empirical TEC (forecast) models still useful in operational applications. Assimilation of observations in physics based models is the unique way to get reliable forecasts in the future, promising results obtained (GAIM).