A Decision Aid for Performance Assessment of Ionospheric Data Sets and Models

摘要

In this paper, we present a methodology which we suggest could provide a rapid decision aid for choosing among approaches to ionospheric specification based on estimation of the value/payoff of certain data sets alone or assimilated by generic models. We examine approaches to estimate the impact of each data set, and combinations of data sets, on the overall task of diurnal global ionospheric specification. We also examine approaches to estimating the benefit to be obtained by assimilating these data sets into a generic ionospheric model. This investigation builds on previous efforts to estimate the relative utilities of data types used by assimilative global ionospheric models [SA43A-1614, 2009 AGU Fall Meeting; Paper 152, International Beacon Satellite Symposium 2010, BSS2010], and subsequent efforts to apply the core of previous schema, namely the spatial and temporal coverage provided by each data source, to examine the diurnal percentage of the ionosphere that can be specified by various idealized data sets assimilated by simplified models. [SM51A-1771, 2010 AGU Fall Meeting]. These earlier results were based on the idealized assumption that any data type is sufficient to fully specify the electron density profile (EDP). In the present paper, we report results from methodology enhancements that include additional generic model capability, and more realistic accounting of each data type's limited contribution to EDP. We added an option of 'sun-fixed ionosphere' (Wilson, et al., 1993) contribution. The basic benefit of the model is still represented simplistically by scaling the correlation distance of the data. We map 'nowcast' coverage for EDP, bottomside, and TEC, in terms of, geography, percent of the planet-day, and percent of coverage at levels of 'now', climatology, or in-between. We hope to illustrate how this methodology could provide a rapid decision aid for choosing among various data sets and models.