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SPACE WEATHER, VOL. 4, S02C04, doi:10.1029/2005SW000144, 2006

Convective Ionospheric Storms: A Major Space Weather Problem

Michael C. Kelley

Cornell University, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ithaca, NY, U.S.A


Jonathan J. Makela

University of Illinois, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Urbana, IL, U.S.A.


Odile de la Beaujardiére

Boston University, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Hanscom AFB, MA, U.S.A.


Abstract

Some fifty years into the Space Age, technical societies are deeply committed to the utilization of space. For the military, space is the ultimate high ground from which a variety of surveillance, communications, and navigation systems operate. For industry, the communications and positional/navigational opportunities using space-based systems are virtually unlimited. However, when the plasma between the satellite and the receiver is turbulent, satellite signals scintillate in a manner analogous to the twinkling of starlight as it traverses the turbulent atmosphere, and both communication and navigation systems can be seriously affected.

Published 7 February 2006.

Keywords: Equatorial spread F, scintillations, satellite instrumentation.

Index Terms: 2415 Ionosphere: Equatorial ionosphere; 2431 Ionosphere: Ionosphere/magnetosphere interactions (2736); 2439 Ionosphere: Ionospheric irregularities; 2441 Ionosphere: Ionospheric storms (7949).

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Citation: Kelley, M. C., J. J. Makela, and O. de la Beaujardiére (2006), Convective Ionospheric Storms: A Major Space Weather Problem, Space Weather, 4, S02C04, doi:10.1029/2005SW000144.