Characteristics of global plasmaspheric TEC in comparison with the ionosphere simultaneously observed by Jason-1 satellite

Abstract

We compared the global plasmaspheric total electron content (pTEC) with the ionospheric TEC (iTEC) simultaneously measured by Jason-1 satellite during the declining phase of solar cycle 23 (2002-2009) to investigate the global morphology of the plasmaspheric density in relation to the ionosphere. Our study showed that the plasmaspheric density structures fundamentally follow the ionosphere, but there are also significant differences between them. Although the diurnal variations are very similar to each region, the plasmasphere shows much weaker variations, only approximately 1 TECU day-night difference. By analyzing the day-night differences in the plasmasphere, we found that the plasmaspheric contribution to the nighttime ionosphere does not increase with solar activity and the largest contribution occurs during June solstice. The plasmasphere shows similar seasonal variations to the ionosphere, except for the semiannual variation, which is essentially absent in the plasmasphere. There is also an important difference in the annual variation: although the annual variation in the ionosphere exists regardless of longitude, it occurs only at American sector in the plasmasphere. As solar activity increases to moderate level, the pTEC substantially enhances from approximately 2 to 4 TECU at the initial increase of solar activity below F10.7p = 100 and then quickly slows down while the iTEC almost linearly enhances. Although it is well known that magnetic storms are the major source of plasmaspheric density depletion, pTEC does not show this aspect of the plasmasphere probably due to the relatively small Kp values for high magnetic activity (Kp > 2.5) in the current study. © 2013. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.