Assessing the Occurrence Pattern of Large Ionospheric TEC Gradients over the Brazilian Airspace: Ionospheric Gradients over Brazilian Airspace

We investigate the occurrence pattern of equatorial plasma bubbles and the corresponding ionospheric gradients over a section of the Brazilian airspace in 2014/2015. The GPS-derived total electron content (TEC) data from a chain of receiver stations were used in this study to compute the TEC gradients along the southern crest of the equatorial ionospheric anomaly region over Brazil. Here, we present a few illustrative examples to delineate the general qualitative features of equatorial plasma bubbles in this region, and the varying degree of TEC gradient magnitudes associated with these bubbles. We also inferred the overall probability distribution function of the computed TEC gradient magnitudes in this region, which extend up to 1000 mm/km at the GPS L1 frequency. Copyright © 2016 Institute of Navigation.

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