Ionospheric equatorial anomaly formation over Pacific and Atlanticoceans measured by NASA TOPEX satellite

摘要

Summary form only given. Previous ionospheric observations havemeasured total electron content (TEC) values at fixed land basedlocations. These observations suggest the existence of longitudinalvariations in TEC values. Complementing ground data, the current NASATOPEX mission is providing TEC data collected over oceans as a functionof latitude, longitude and time starting from September 1992. With thisbroad data base, the authors show a more complete picture of thelongitudinal dependance between the Atlantic and Pacific ocean regionsand relate this dependance to plasma drifts. Periods during June andDecember solstice, and March and September equinox in the years 1992,through 1995, are picked to study the low-latitude regions spanning theAtlantic and Pacific oceans. TEC isodensity contours are presented bylatitude versus longitude at common local time. The authors correlatethese contours with results from the Phillips Laboratory ionosphericmodel