Ionospheric measurements over Bangladesh and their significance on radio systems operation

Abstract

This paper attempts to investigate the ionosphere over Bangladesh for the first time and presents a comparison of the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI-2012) with the peak ionospheric characteristics (foF2-hmF2) and electron density profiles (EDP) measured by radio occultation (RO) missions. In absence of systematic ionosonde measurements over this area, RO measurements provide an opportunity to perform such a study by considering observations for years 2003-15 with a limited dataset from COSMIC Data Analysis and Archive Centre (CDAAC). Ionospheric irregularities have also been studied with COSMIC scintillation dataset during 2007-14 and diurnal, seasonal, and long-term variation is reported.