EGU22-11014, updated on 08 Jan 2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-11014
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Diagnose the diffractive contribution to GNSS scintillation at high latitude during the geomagnetic storm on 7-8 September 2017

Chao Xiong1,2, Yuhao Zheng1, Yaqi Jin3, Dun Liu4, Chunyu Xu1, Yixun Zhu1, and Kjellmar OKsavik5
Chao Xiong et al.
  • 1Department of Space Physics, Electronic Information School, Wuhan University, 430072 Wuhan, China.
  • 2Hubei Luojia Laboratory, 430079 Wuhan, China.
  • 3Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
  • 4No. 22nd Research Institude, CETC, 266107 Qingdao, Shangdong, China.
  • 5Birkeland Centre for Space Science, Department of Physics and Technology, University of Bergen, P.B. 7803, 5020 Bergen, Norway

The ionospheric plasma irregularities can cause severe scintillation of the trans-ionospheric radio waves, e.g., signals from the global navigation satellite system (GNSS). The phase scintillation of GNSS signal are usually caused by both refractive and diffractive variations, while the amplitude scintillation is mainly attributed to diffractive process. At high latitude, the GNSS signals usually exhibit strong phase scintillation, but the meanwhile amplitude scintillation is very low. Such a feature leads to the commonly known issue as “phase without amplitude scintillation at high latitude”. In this study, we focused on the geomagnetic storm happened on 7-8 September 2017. High-resolution data from four GNSS receivers at high latitudes were utilized. Quite intense phase and amplitude scintillations, represented by σ4 and S4, respectively, were observed during the storm mainly phase. By checking the ionosphere-free linear combination (IFLC) parameter, the intense phase and amplitude scintillations are found associated with diffractive effects. Simultaneous observations from the Swarm satellite have been further analyzed to resolve the possible reasons that cause the diffractive influence of scintillation. 

How to cite: Xiong, C., Zheng, Y., Jin, Y., Liu, D., Xu, C., Zhu, Y., and OKsavik, K.: Diagnose the diffractive contribution to GNSS scintillation at high latitude during the geomagnetic storm on 7-8 September 2017, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-11014, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-11014, 2022.