Statistical Models of Ionospheric Variability and Irregularities in the Topside Ionosphere Based on the Swarm Satellite Data

Abstract

The ionosphere is a highly complex plasma containing electron density structures with a wide range of spatial scales. Coupling of the ionosphere with the Earth's magnetosphere and the solar wind, as well as to the neutral atmosphere, makes the ionosphere highly dynamic and highly dependent on the driving processes. Thus, modelling the ionosphere and capturing its full dynamic range considering all spatiotemporal scales is challenging. Swarm is the European Space Agency's (ESA) first constellation mission for Earth Observation, comprising multiple satellites in low Earth orbit. During the Swarm-VIP-Dynamic project, a suite of statistical models has been developed using observations from Swarm and proxies for heliogeophysical processes. The statistical modelling technique of Generalised Linear Modelling was used to create models for both the electron density and the variability of the plasma structures at horizontal spatial scales between 7.5 km and 100 km. Separate models were created for low, middle, auroral and polar latitudes. The models make predictions based on explanatory variables, which act as proxies for the underlying physical processes. The performance of the models of the electron density approached the theoretical best values for some of the goodness-of-fit statistics. This suggests that the modelling method is appropriate for the task undertaken. The models of ionospheric variability at larger spatial scales (about 100 km) also perform well, however the model performance decreases at smaller spatial scales. This suggests that there are physical processes missing from the models. Possible candidates are instability processes or driving forces of the ionosphere by wave activity from below, neither of which are captured by the models.