Scintillations in Southern Europe during the geomagnetic storm of June 2015: analysis of a plasma bubbles spill-over using ground-based data

Abstract

The sensitivity of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers to ionospheric disturbances and their constant growth are nowadays resulting in an increased concern of GNSS-users about the impacts of ionospheric disturbances at mid-latitudes. The geomagnetic storm of June 2015 is an example of a rare phenomenon of a spill-over of equatorial plasma bubbles well North from their habitual. We study the occurrence of small- and medium-scale irregularities in the North Atlantic Eastern-Mediterranean mid- and low-latitudinal zone by analysing the behaviour of the amplitude scintillation index S4 and of the rate of total electron content index (ROTI) during such a storm. In addition, large scale perturbations of the ionospheric electron density were studied using ground and space-born instruments, thus characterizing a complex perturbation behaviour over the region mentioned above. The multi-source data allows us to characterize the impact of irregularities of different scales to better understand the ionospheric dynamics and stress the importance of a proper monitoring of the ionosphere in the studied region.