Ionospheric radio occultation inversion constrained with the data assimillation

Abstract:

Ionospheric radio occultation inversion constrained with the data assimillation

 

Wu Xiaocheng, Hu Xiong, Zhang Yanan

National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences

The assumption that electron density distribution is spherically symmetric, is usually used in the traditional ionospheric radio occultation (IRO) inversion, and it is the main error source of IRO inversion. In order to improve the IRO inversion, many methods were studied. One of them uses known ionosphere background to constrain the inversion of IRO, but it has not been used in the routine processing of observation data, due to that it is difficult to get the proper ionosphere background. Data assimilation can provide accurate electron density on the three dimensional grid, which may be used to constrain the IRO inversion and improve the inversion result. This article assimilates the TEC of ground GPS and IRO observation, and the constrains the IRO inversion. The inversion result is greatly improved.

Key Words: Ionospheric radio occultation, Data assimilation, Inversion, GPS