Influence of ionospheric perturbations in GPS time and frequency transfer

The stability of GPS time and frequency transfer is limited by the fact that GPS signals travel through the ionosphere. In high precision geodetic time transfer (i.e. based on precise modeling of code and carrier phase GPS data), the so-called ionosphere-free combination of the code and carrier phase measurements made on the two frequencies is used to remove the first-order ionospheric effect. In this paper, we investigate the impact of residual second- and third-order ionospheric effects on geodetic time transfer solutions i.e. remote atomic clock comparisons based on GPS measurements, using the ATOMIUM software developed at the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB). The impact of third-order ionospheric effects was shown to be negligible, while for second-order effects, the tests performed on different time links and at different epochs show a small impact of the order of some picoseconds, on a quiet day, and up to more than 10 picoseconds in case of high ionospheric activity. The geomagnetic storm of the 30th October 2003 is used to illustrate how space weather products are relevant to understand perturbations in geodetic time and frequency transfer.Comment: 25 pages, 10 eps figures, 1 table, accepted in Journal of Advances in Space Research, Special Issue "Recent advances in space weather monitoring, modelling and forecasting

Calibration Uncertainty of Non-Catching Precipitation Gauges

Precipitation is among the most important meteorological variables for, e.g., meteorological, hydrological, water management and climate studies. In recent years, non-catching precipitation gauges are increasingly adopted in meteorological networks. Despite such growing diffusion, calibration procedures and associated uncertainty budget are not yet standardized or prescribed in best practice documents and standards. This paper reports a metrological study aimed at proposing calibration procedures and completing the uncertainty budgets, to make non-catching precipitation gauge measurements traceable to primary standards. The study is based on the preliminary characterization of different rain drop generators, specifically developed for the investigation. Characterization of different models of non-catching rain gauges is also included

The influence of space weather on ionospheric total electron content during the 23rd solar cycle

This paper presents a new empirical model for predicting the daily mean ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) at a given latitude from only one solar index as input. For the development of the model we take advantage of the availability of 15 years of global GNSS-based TEC information and solar indices (Sunspot Number, F10.7 and derived F10.7P) including the 23rd solar cycle. Among all the tests, our preferred ionospheric climatological model to predict daily mean TEC presents yearly median differences with observed values of 1.4 ± 0.9 TECu (11.5 ± 2.9% for the relative differences) with no significant degradation during the different phases of the solar cycle. To realize this empirical model we used a least-square adjustment with (1) a combination of linear, annual and semi-annual terms between the TEC and F10.7P; (2) a discretization with respect to the phases of the solar cycle. The main differences between the modelled and the observed TEC occur during identified geomagnetic storms: the maximum differences (−3.2 ± 1.5 TECu) and relative differences (−19.6 ± 15.0%) occur one day after the storm onset. The typical time to retrieve the pre-storm conditions is 3–4 days after the onset. These results show a global picture of the effect of extreme Space Weather events on the Earth’s upper atmosphere

The influence of space weather on ionospheric total electron content during the 23rd solar cycle

This paper presents a new empirical model for predicting the daily mean ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) at a given latitude from only one solar index as input. For the development of the model we take advantage of the availability of 15 years of global GNSS-based TEC information and solar indices (Sunspot Number, F10.7 and derived F10.7P) including the 23rd solar cycle. Among all the tests, our preferred ionospheric climatological model to predict daily mean TEC presents yearly median differences with observed values of 1.4 ± 0.9 TECu (11.5 ± 2.9% for the relative differences) with no significant degradation during the different phases of the solar cycle. To realize this empirical model we used a least-square adjustment with (1) a combination of linear, annual and semi-annual terms between the TEC and F10.7P; (2) a discretization with respect to the phases of the solar cycle. The main differences between the modelled and the observed TEC occur during identified geomagnetic storms: the maximum differences (−3.2 ± 1.5 TECu) and relative differences (−19.6 ± 15.0%) occur one day after the storm onset. The typical time to retrieve the pre-storm conditions is 3–4 days after the onset. These results show a global picture of the effect of extreme Space Weather events on the Earth’s upper atmosphere

Near real-time ionospheric monitoring over Europe at the Royal Observatory of Belgium using GNSS data

Various scientific applications and services increasingly demand real-time information on the effects of space weather on Earth’s atmosphere. In this frame, the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB) takes advantage of the dense EUREF Permanent GNSS Network (EPN) to monitor the ionosphere over Europe from the measured delays in the GNSS signals, and provides publicly several derived products. The main ROB products consist of ionospheric vertical Total Electron Content (TEC) maps over Europe and their variability estimated in near real-time every 15 min on 0.5° × 0.5° grids using GPS observations. The maps are available online with a latency of ~3 min in IONEX format at ftp://gnss.oma.b