Attenuation of GPS scintillation in Brazil due to magnetic storms

Abstract

Amplitude scintillations in satellite signals can cause errors in communications, because of signal fading, but can be very useful for scientists trying to improve their understanding of the physics of the ionosphere. Usually, magnetic storms are expected to affect the ionosphere in such way as to increase ionospheric irregularities responsible for scintillations. To help change the view of scientists and engineers, in this respect, we show that amplitude scintillation on GPS signals show dramatic decrease during selected magnetic storms, at Brazilian GPS stations. These stations are located on magnetic latitudes that go from equatorial (São Luís) to low-latitude (São José dos Campos and Cachoeira Paulista) so that a region of several thousand kilometers is represented by the data. We present 4 months of data chosen from 2003 to 2005 to represent the strongest storms during each scintillation season. Although there is lack of data for some days from the different stations, it is possible to see, especially for the Halloween Storm (October 2003), that scintillations are attenuated in this wide range of latitudes. During magnetically calm periods scintillations are strong, in this region, from August to March, during solar maxima. Although the data are clear about the attenuation of scintillations during greater magnetic storms, it is not possible to easily conclude which physical mechanism was responsible for this phenomenon, even with the aid of more detailed data like Dst and AE. Copyright © 2008 by the American Geophysical Union.