Title: A comparative study of the equatorial spread-f occurrence between post-sunset and post-midnight during minimum solar activity
Abstract: This study compared the post-sunset and post-midnight equatorial spread-F (ESF) characteristics as well as their association with equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) and ionospheric scintillation. The occurrence of ESF was studied by looking at the percentage of monthly event intensity as well as seasonal variations during minimum solar activity (2008). This research used ionosonde, all-sky imager (ASI) and GPS receivers mounted on Kototabang (0.2°S, 100.3°E, -10.4° magnetic latitude) Indonesia. The occurrence of ESF were identified with two events, namely post-sunset (18:00-00:00 LT) and post-midnight (00:00-06:00 LT). From the observations, the percentage gained for ESF occurrence was 39.68%, with 18.01% for post-sunset and 21.67% for post-midnight, respectively. This suggests that the incidence of post-midnight ESF was greater than in post-sunset events during 2008. The occurrence of post-midnight ESF was more dominant in the summer solstice (May-July) with a value of 72.34%, while for post-sunset in equinoxes (Augustus- October) with a value of 62.79%. The correlation between the occurrence of ESF and EPBs show that post-sunset and post-midnight ESF averages are observed about ~30 minutes and ~60 minutes since the start of the EPBs. This reinforces the notion that one of the causes of the ESF is the instability that occurs below the elevation of the ionosphere F-layer indicating a movement of EPBs from the bottom-up processing. The occurrence of ESF has an impact on the incidence of scintillation, where at post-sunset ESF has a direct effect, whereas at post-midnight ESF it takes ~90 minutes to form scintillation, respectively.
Publication Year: 2018
Publication Date: 2018-10-09
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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