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New Lightning-Derived Vertical Total Electron Content Data Provide Unique Global Ionospheric Measurements

Journal Article · · Space Weather
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2022sw003067· OSTI ID:1876821
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [4];  [1];  [1];  [5]
  1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  2. Naval Research Lab. (NRL), Washington, DC (United States)
  3. California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Jet Propulsion Lab. (JPL)
  4. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Westford, MA (United States). Haystack Observatory
  5. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, CO (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
A newly released, novel ionospheric data set of global gridded vertical total electron content (VTEC) is introduced in this paper. This VTEC data set, provided by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), is derived from very high frequency (VHF; defined as 30–300 MHz) broadband radio-frequency (RF) measurements of lightning made by U.S. Department of Defense sensing systems on board Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. This paper presents the new data set (LANL VTEC), discusses the errors inherent in VHF TEC estimation due to ionospheric dispersion, and compares the LANL VTEC to two community standard VTEC gridded products: Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Global Ionospheric Model (JPL GIM) and the CEDAR community's Open Madrigal VTEC gridded measurements of L-band GNSS (global navigation satellite systems) TEC. We find that the LANL VTEC data have an offset of 3 TECU from CEDAR Madrigal GNSS VTEC and a full-width-half-maximum (FWHM) of 6 TECU. In comparison, the offset between LANL VTEC and the JPL GIM model is –3 TECU, but with a FWHM of 5 TECU. We also compare to Jason-3 VTEC measurements over the ocean, finding an offset of less than 0.5 TECU and an FWHM of <5 TECU. Because this technique uses a completely different methodology to determine TEC, the sources of errors are distinct from the typical ground-based GNSS L-band (GHz) TEC measurements. Also, because it is derived from RF lightning signals, this data set provides measurements in regions that are not well covered by ground-based GPS measurements, such as over oceans and over central Africa.
Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation
Grant/Contract Number:
89233218CNA000001
OSTI ID:
1876821
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-22-23706
Journal Information:
Space Weather, Journal Name: Space Weather Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 20; ISSN 1542-7390
Publisher:
American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
Ionosphere
lightning
radio frequency
total electron content