Multi-Instrument Observations of MSTIDs
1
1
2
Ross Dinsmore , J. D. Mathews , and Dr. Sumanta Sarkhel
1
Radar Space Sciences Lab, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania
2
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India
Incoherent Scatter Radar
What are MSTIDs?
 UHF Radar at Millstone Hill Observatory used to find waves in ionosphere
 Acronym stands for Medium Scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances
 Used as baseline to compare validity of other methods
 Electron waves that show up in 100 kilometer to 600 km altitude range
 Can be seen in visible, radar, GPS spectrums all over the world
 Hourly period and a general southward direction in the Northern Hemisphere
GPS Total Electron Content
 GPS TEC is the total electron content in the column of atmosphere that is measured using the
GPS signals, MSTIDs can show up in GPS TEC
 CEDAR Archival Madrigal Database has world wide GPS TEC available
 World wide GPS TEC is provided in large grid format, could show MSTID wave orientation
In the above figure, the vertical streaks represent the MSTIDs passing
overhead. As can be seen they are always present, with an hourly
periodicity. Zenith is at an 88° angle, MISA is at a 66° angle.
 Two beam ISR data put through high pass filter and had the mean at 300
km removed to accentuate disturbances with ~1 hour period
 Ubiquitous MSTIDs can be seen with hourly periods that cover entire
dataset and reach hundreds of kilometers in altitude
References
[1] Livneh, D. J., I. Seker, F. T. Djuth, and J. D. Mathews (2009), Omnipresent vertically coherent fluctuations
in the ionosphere with a possible worldwide-midlatitude extent, J. Geophys. Res., 114, A06303,
doi:10.1029/2008JA013999.
[2] Nicolls, M. J., S. L. Vadas, N. Aponte, and M. P. Sulzer (2014), Horizontal parameters of daytime thermospheric gravity waves and E region neutral winds over Puerto Rico, J. Geophys. Res. Space Physics, 119, 575
–600, doi:10.1002/2013JA018988.
The figure above shows GPS TEC with the average
TEC removed. The lower part shows streaks,
which may be useful. The upper part’s formations
are entirely due to data availability fluctuating.
Above is a visualization of a slice of the TEC
through time. Slicing at different angles will hopefully help identify the direction MSTIDs travel. The
asterisk represents Millstone Hill, MA.
 Using slices of the world wide GPS TEC, MSTIDs hopefully can be found, no firm findings yet
Support
Support by the National Science Foundation through Grant AGS 1241407 to The Pennsylvania State University