Identification

Title

The ionospheric midlatitude trough observed by FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC during solar minimum

Abstract

This paper for the first time reports global three-dimensional (3-D) structures of the ionospheric midlatitude trough using electron density profiles derived from the GPS radio occultation experiment on board FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC (F3/C) satellites during the solar minimum period, February 2008 to January 2009. Results show that the midlatitude trough extends from dusk to dawn in all four seasons and is most pronounced in the winter hemisphere. The troughs in the two hemispheres are asymmetric, where the trough in the Northern Hemisphere is more evident and stronger than that in the Southern Hemisphere during the equinoctial seasons. In general, the trough minimum position shows a high-low-high latitudinal variation with magnetic local time and occurs at lower latitudes under higher magnetic activity. On the other hand, the midlatitude trough structures become more complex in the Southern Hemisphere because of the nighttime plasma density enhancement of the Weddell Sea Anomaly. Our results demonstrate that the new data set of GPS radio occultation by F3/C is useful to probe the global 3-D electron density structures of the midlatitude trough.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7s1832s

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2011-06-18T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact