The auroral oval is a region of intense Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio scintillation. Ionospheric turbulence can cause scintillation below 3 GHz which means it can severely affect Global Positioning System (GPS) and other forms of wireless communication such as radio frequency (RF) and ultrahigh frequency (UHF). These effects are particularly prevalent at high latitudes, where auroral ionization patterns affect signals and low latitudes where plasma instabilities structure the ionosphere to small scales. This thesis addresses the connection between a well-known GPS derived measurement called total electron content (TEC) to ionospheric state parameters through optical imaging and modeling.
The first part of this thesis uses the Global Airglow (GLOW) aeronomical model to infer height-dependent ionospheric state parameters. Spectral imagery and GNSS data are combined to constrain the state outputs of GLOW using a Nelder-Mead optimization during periods of auroral-induced scintillation. The second part of the thesis models the ionospheric continuity equation to produce high-rate electron temperature estimates using temperature dependent recombination from a combined optical and GNSS perspective. Both of these methods quantify E-region dynamic state parameters at a rate (<10 second) that is unachievable by any standard means, such as incoherent scatter radar (ISR). The reliability of these methods is contextualized for the E-region response to auroral forcing for coaligned and non-ideal measurement scenarios common in high latitude receiver networks.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/48872 |
| Date | 24 May 2024 |
| Creators | LeMay, Meghan |
| Contributors | Semeter, Josua L. |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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