Tool for Creating Maps of GNSS Total Electron Content Variations

Abstract

In the recent years, a significant amount of the measurements of the Earth's ionosphere state has been made by medium- and high-orbit global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) such as GLONASS, GPS, Galileo, Beidou, SBAS, etc. Currently, a number of services (such as IGS, UNAVCO, CHAIN, CORS, etc.) provide GNSS data in open access in the RINEX format. The databases start from early 1990s. Currently more than 5700 GNSS sites provide ~ 1.5 Gb daily which is 200 millions independent data points. The software tools to deal with such amount of data become necessary to do research effectively. We have developed System for the Ionosphere Monitoring and Researching from GNSS (SIMuRG) for organizing RINEX data and analyzing results from geophysical research view point. This paper describes approaches to create SIMURG, as well as the opportunities that the system can provide to the scientific community.