Intercalibration of the Plasma Density Measurements in Earth's Topside Ionosphere

Abstract

Over the last 20 years, a large number of instruments have provided plasma density measurements in Earth's topside ionosphere. To utilize all of the collected observations for empirical modeling, it is necessary to ensure that they do not exhibit systematic differences and are adjusted to the same reference frame. In this study, we compare satellite plasma density observations from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC), CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload (CHAMP), Swarm, and Communications/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) missions. Electron densities retrieved from GRACE K-Band Ranging (KBR) system, previously shown to be in excellent agreement with incoherent scatter radar (ISR) measurements, are used as a reference. We find that COSMIC radio occultation (RO) densities are highly consistent with GRACE-KBR observations showing a mean relative difference of