Long-term prediction of the Arctic ionospheric TEC based on time-varying periodograms

PLoS One. 2014 Nov 4;9(11):e111497. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0111497. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Knowledge of the polar ionospheric total electron content (TEC) and its future variations is of scientific and engineering relevance. In this study, a new method is developed to predict Arctic mean TEC on the scale of a solar cycle using previous data covering 14 years. The Arctic TEC is derived from global positioning system measurements using the spherical cap harmonic analysis mapping method. The study indicates that the variability of the Arctic TEC results in highly time-varying periodograms, which are utilized for prediction in the proposed method. The TEC time series is divided into two components of periodic oscillations and the average TEC. The newly developed method of TEC prediction is based on an extrapolation method that requires no input of physical observations of the time interval of prediction, and it is performed in both temporally backward and forward directions by summing the extrapolation of the two components. The backward prediction indicates that the Arctic TEC variability includes a 9 years period for the study duration, in addition to the well-established periods. The long-term prediction has an uncertainty of 4.8-5.6 TECU for different period sets.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Arctic Regions
  • Atmosphere / chemistry*
  • Electrons*
  • Environmental Monitoring*
  • Geographic Information Systems
  • Ions / analysis*
  • Models, Chemical
  • Periodicity

Substances

  • Ions

Grants and funding

This work was supported in part by the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Laser Scanning Research, which is funded under project 272195 (JH) by the Academy of Finland (http://www.aka.fi). This work was also supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 41174029(ZW), 41204028(JA), and 41231064(ZW))(http://www.nsfc.gov.cn). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.