NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, AGARTALA

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF
LATITUDINAL VARIATION OF IN-SITU
AND MODEL IONOSPHERIC TOTAL
ELECTRON CONTENT

Presented by :
MOUMITA CHAKRABORTY
13DTPH001
ENGINEERING PHYSICS
 WHAT IS TEC?

Features of GPS
32 satellite vehicles
TEC (Total Electron Six orbital planes

Content) is the total Inclined 55o with respect to

equator
number of electrons Orbits separated by 60o

present along a path 20,200 km elevation above Earth

between a radio Orbital period of 11 hr 55 min

Five to eight satellites visible
 FORMULATING TEC

Mathematically,
TEC =
where is location dependent electron density.

It is measured in electrons per sq. metre.

By convention, 1 TEC Unit, TECU = electrons /
 FORMULATING TEC

The vertical TEC (VTEC) integrating electron

density on a perpendicular to the ground standing route.

The slant TEC (STEC) integrating over any

straight path.
convert
Receiver provides STEC VTEC
Use suitable mapping function at different IPP considering thin shell
model developed by Klobuchar [1986].
WHY IS TEC
IMPORTANT?

The ionospheric Radio waves are affected by electrons.

phase delay:
Velocity of radio waves changes
=- traversing through the electrons in the
ionosphere.

Total delay suffered depends on the

While the ionospheric frequency of radio waves and the TEC
group delay is between transmitter and receiver.

=
-
 WHAT AFFECTS TEC?
Solar activities

Geomagnetic field effect

Movement of neutral wind due to Earths rotation in the upper
atmosphere
Neutral composition and so on.

Local time
Latitude
TEC Longitude
depen Season
Geomagnetic conditions
ds on : Solar cycle and activity
Tropospheric conditions
 LOCATION OF IGS
STATIONS
1.NVSK (54.84N, 83.23E) :
Mid-lat., NH

2.GUAO (43.47N, 87.18E) :

Mid-lat., NH

3.LHAZ (29.66N, 91.10E):

EIA crest, Low-lat., NH

4.PBRI (11.64N, 92.71E):

EIA region, Low-lat., NH

5.COCO ( - 12.19N,
96.83E) :EIA region, Low-lat.,
SH
 ANALYSIS
IGS data is analysed to retrieve TEC for the 5 stations.
This measured TEC is compared with model, here used is IRI 2012.
Analyses are done for deep solar minimum year 2009 and a solar maximum year 2012 for
the 10 monthly quiet days.
Diurnal, monthly and seasonal analyses of TEC are done.
Diurnal variation of TEC

Variation of
TEC on (a)
17 Jan 2009
and (b) 8
Jan 2012 at
five
different
stations
COCO, PBRI,
LHAZ, GUAO,
NVSK
 ANALYSIS

Monthly variation of TEC at

COCO

12

MONTH
0 24
UUT
(HOUR
)

*TEC measurements are in

TECU
Contour Plots of Monthly Variation of TEC for the year 2009 and 2012 at COCO
 ANALYSIS

Seasonal variation of TEC at

COCO

Line plots of Seasonal Variation of TEC in 2009 at COCO station

 ANALYSIS

Seasonal variation of TEC at

COCO

Line plots of Seasonal Variation of TEC in 2012 at COCO station

 ANALYSIS

DTEC variation for COCO station

Equinox 2009 Summer 2009 Winter 2009

Equinox Summer Winter 2012

2012 2012
 DISCUSSION
From the above results, it can be noted that there is a level of discrepancy between the
IRI model and the IGS stations data. This discrepancy depends on various factors like
local time, season, latitude and strength of solar activity.

The seasonal maximum is basically observed during equinox due to the change in
neutral and O/ ratio at equatorial and low-lat. region, but in the present analysis some
stations like COCO, GUAO are not showing the maximum TEC values in the equinox. This
need further investigation.

An underestimation and overestimation in IRI TEC is seen, which is quite expected

because of exclusion of plasmasphere TEC. At the low-lat. station PBRI, both the IRI
coefficients have shown an underestimation during daytime during all seasons. For other
stations, there are overestimations by the model.
The largest overestimation in the IRI-2012 model TEC has been observed during daytime hour in EIA
and low-lat. regions (COCO, PBRI, and LHAZ). One possible cause may be is the daytime expansion
of ionosphere. The noon-bite out phenomenon is easily noticeable for PBRI station for all seasons.
But these mechanisms still cant explain the longer period daytime discrepancies. These suggest
some other mechanisms hidden which need more analysis to uncover them.

The other possibility for the overestimation may be is the inaccurate prediction of foF2
by the IRI model.
 FUTURE SCOPE

The largest deviations in model and observed TEC may be

occurring due to poor estimation on foF2 and NmF2 from the
coefficients of IRI model.
These results may be useful for model improvement and
error representation.

The accuracy of the IRI model TEC depends on the NmF2, the
hmF2 and the topside shape parameters estimated by the
respective topside model.
In this regard, the present study can be extended with the
NmF2, the hmF2 data to find the causes of discrepancies of
in-situ and model.
 CONCLUSION

TEC is an important parameter

to mitigate ionospheric errors
introduced in a GNSS (e.g., GPS
system).
 REFERENCE
Klobuchar, John A., Design and Characterisation of GPS Time Delay Algorithm for single
frequency users, In Proceedings of the IEEE Position Location and Navigation Symposium, 1986.
Rama Rao, P.V.S., K. Niranjan, D.S.V.V.D. Prasad, S. Gopi Krishna and G. Uma. On the validity of
the ionospheric pierce point (IPP) altitude of altitude of 350 km in the Indian equatorial and low-
latitude sector, Annales Geophysicae, 24, 2159-2168, 2006.
Bilitza, D., S.A. Brown, Y.W. Mathew, R.S. Jonas and A. R Patrick. Measurements and IRI model
predictions during the recent solar minimum, J Atmos. Sol.-Terr. Phy., 86, 99-106, 2012.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Special thanks to my supervisor Dr. Rakesh Roy , my project helper Dr.

Monty Chakraborty. Thanks to my dept., for providing me with all
necessities.

Thank
MONTHLY VARIATION
MONTHLY VARIATION
SEASONAL VARIATION
SEASONAL VARIATION
DTEC
VARIATION
DTEC VARIATION