Impact of the substorms and polar cap patches on GPS radio waves at polar latitudes.

Abstract

The comparative research of the influence of substrorm precipitation and polar cap patches (PCP) on the GPS signals disturbances in the polar ionosphere was done. For this aim we use the GPS scintillation receivers at Ny-Ålesund, operated by the University of Oslo. The presence of the auroral particle precipitation and polar cap patches was determined by using data from the EISCAT 42m radar on Svalbard. We consider tens of events when the simultaneous EISCAT 42m and GPS data were available. We demonstrate that substorm-associated precipitations can lead to a strong GPS phase (σΦ) scintillations up to ~2 radians which is much stronger than those usually produced by PCPs. At the same PCPs can lead to strong ROT (rate of total electron content) variations. So our observations suggest that the substorms and PCPs, being different types of the high-latitude disturbances, lead to the development of different types and scales of ionospheric irregularities.