• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.25.1-25.1
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• 2008

The Weddell Sea Anomaly (WSA) in the ionosphere is characterized by higher plasma density at night than during the day in the region near the Weddell Sea. According to previous studies on the WSA, it is known to occur mostly in southern summer and has not been reported in other seasons. We have utilized more than 13-year TOPEX TEC measurements in order to study how the WSA varies with seasons and how it changes with solar activity. The TOPEX TEC data have been extensively utilized for the climatological study of the ionosphere due to its excellent spatial and temporal coverage. We investigate the seasonal and solar activity variations of the WSA using four seasonal cases (Mar. equinox, Jun. solstice, Sep, equinox, and Dec. solstice) and two solar activity conditions (F10.7<120 for solar minimum and F10.7>120 for solar maximum conditions) for geomagnetically quiet periods. Our analysis shows that the WSA occurs only in the southern summer hemisphere for low F10.7, as in previous studies, but the WSA occurs all of seasons except for winter when F10.7 is high: it is most prominent during the December solstice (southern summer) and still strong during both equinoxes. The WSA appears to be an extreme case of global longitudinal variations at mid- and high-latitudes.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.305-310
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• 2011

The total electron content (TEC) using global positioning system (GPS) is analyzed to see the characteristics of ionosphere over King Sejong station (KSJ, geographic latitude $62^{\circ}13'S$, longitude $58^{\circ}47'W$, corrected geomagnetic latitude $48^{\circ}S$) in Antarctic. The GPS operational ratio during the observational period between 2005 and 2009 is 90.1%. The annual variation of the daily mean TEC decreases from January 2005 to February 2009, but increase from the June 2009. In summer (December-February), the seasonal mean TEC values have the maximum of 26.2 ${\pm}$ 2.4 TEC unit (TECU) in 2005 and the minimum of 16.5 ${\pm}$ 2.8 TECU in 2009, and the annual differences decrease from 3.0 TECU (2005-2006) to 1.4 TECU (2008-2009). However, on November 2010, it significantly increases to 22.3 ${\pm}$ 2.8 TECU which is up to 5.8 TECU compared with 2009 in summer. In winter (June-August), the seasonal mean TEC slightly decreases from 13.7 ${\pm}$ 4.5 TECU in 2005 to 8.9 ${\pm}$ 0.6 TECU in 2008, and the annual difference is constantly about 1.6 TECU, and increases to 10.3 ${\pm}$ 1.8 TECU in 2009. The annual variations of diurnal amplitude show the seasonal features that are scattered in summer and the enhancements near equinoxes are apparent in the whole years. In contrast, the semidiurnal amplitudes show the disturbed annual peaks in winter and its enhancements near equinoxes are unapparent. The diurnal phases are not constant in winter and show near 12 local time (LT). The semidiurnal phases have a seasonal pattern between 00 LT and 06 LT. Consequently, the KSJ GPS TEC variations show the significant semidiurnal variation in summer from December to February under the solar minimum between 2005 and 2009. The feature is considered as the Weddell Sea anomaly of larger nighttime electron density than a daytime electron density that has been observed around the Antarctica peninsula.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
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• 2010.04a
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• pp.30.3-31
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• 2010

We performed a comprehensive comparison between GPS Global Ionosphere Map (GIM) and TOPEX/Jason (T-J) TEC data for the periods of 1998~2009 in order to assess the performance of GIM over the global ocean where the GPS ground stations are very sparse. Using the GIM model constructed by CODE at University of Bern, the GIM TEC values were obtained along the T-J satellite orbit at the locations and times of the measurements and then binned into various geophysical conditions for direct comparison with the T-J TECs. On the whole, the GIM model was able to reproduce the spatial and temporal variations of the global ionosphere as well as the seasonal variations. However, the GIM model was not accurate enough to represent the well-known ionospheric structures such as the equatorial anomaly, the Weddell Sea Anomaly, and the longitudinal wave structure. Furthermore, there seems to be a fundamental limitation of the model showing the unexpected negative differences (i.e., GPS < T-J) in the northern high latitude and the southern middle and high latitude regions. The positive relative differences (i.e., GIM > T-J) at night represent the plasmaspheric contribution to GPS TEC, which is maximized, reaching up to 100% of the corresponding T-J TEC values in the early morning sector. In particular, the relative differences decreased with increasing solar activity and this may indicate that the plasmaspheric contribution to the maintenance of the nighttime ionosphere does not increase with solar activity, which is different from what we normally anticipate. Among these results, the plasmaspheric contribution to the ionospheric GPS TEC will be presented in this talk and the rest of it will presented in the companion paper (poster presentation).