Abstract In this paper, a new index is established which is defined by the standard deviation of total electron content (TEC) fluctuation and denoted by the symbol σtec. It is demonstrated that the index σtec is equivalent to the phase scintillation index and can serve as an indicator of the strength of the phase scintillation. The receiver transiently loses lock on the signal, leading to cycle slips and jumps in the TEC time series. In order to obtain continuous TEC data in the situation of the disturbed ionosphere, a batch processing method is developed to detect and correct cycle slip. Based on the methods mentioned above, we investigate the statistical features of the phase scintillations and cycle slips by means of the data from a scintillation observation network in the south-central region of China during 2012–2015. The results show that the variations of phase scintillation occurrences with local time and season display very similar features to those of the cycle slip occurrences, implying that cycle slips are closely related to phase scintillations. Phase scintillations occur mainly during the night, most frequently before midnight and seldom in the daytime. It is found that phase scintillations occur mainly in equinox months but seldom in solstice months in the crest of the ionization equatorial anomaly and its adjacent regions, and an equinoctial asymmetry that phase scintillations occur more frequently in Spring than in Autumn is also found. Besides, a comparison of the TEC fluctuation index (σtec) and amplitude scintillation index (S4) indicates that there is close relation between the σtec and S4, indicating the co-existence of large and small scale irregularities in equatorial irregularity structures.


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    Title :

    Statistical features of TEC and ionospheric scintillation over the low latitude of China


    Contributors:
    Xu, L. (author) / Cheng, J. (author) / Xu, J.S. (author)

    Published in:

    Advances in Space Research ; 64 , 10 ; 2164-2175


    Publication date :

    2019-07-10


    Size :

    12 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English





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