Ionospheric Index MF2n for Monthly Median foF2 Modeling and Long-Term Prediction Over European Area

摘要

A new ionospheric index MF2n for monthly median foF2 modeling and long-term prediction has been proposed. A comparison with other direct solar and ionospheric indexes used in practice has shown the advantage of MF2n index in retrospective mode. A method for monthly MF2n index long-term prediction is proposed. Long-term (3,6 and 12 months in advance) predicted MF2n were used to calculate foF2. A comparison with foF2 observations and ITU-R model predictions (based on the official R_(12) long-term forecast) has shown the advantage of the proposed approach based on the new index MF2n.