Derivation of metallic plasma layers in Earth's ionosphere (Sporadic E layer) from FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC satellites at a global scale
- 1Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6BB, UK
- 2CAS Key Laboratory of Geospace Environment, Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China
- 3Key Laboratory of Earth and Planetary Physics, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China
In the past decades, the scintillations of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio occultation (RO) measurements have been widely employed to study the occurrence of sporadic E (Es) layers. Recent results indicated that amplitude scintillation index (S4max) observations can be used to study the intensity of global Es layers. In this study, we show a statistical assessment of the hourly ionospheric Es layer measurements between 90 and 130 km from FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC satellites. The Es observations from FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC satellites are in agreement with those from ground-based ionosonde stations at different latitudes. With the successful launch of FORMOSAT-7/COSMIC-2, an accurate, high-resolution (< 5° ×5°×1 hour) map of Es layers on a global scale is available in the hopeful future.
How to cite: Yu, B., Scott, C., Xue, X., Yue, X., and Dou, X.: Derivation of metallic plasma layers in Earth's ionosphere (Sporadic E layer) from FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC satellites at a global scale, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-2448, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-2448, 2020
