| Session Details | |
| Section | ST - Solar & Terrestrial Sciences |
| Session Title | Advances in Ionospheric Irregularity and Scintillation Studies |
| Main Convener | Dr. Guozhu Li (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) |
| Co-convener(s) | Dr. Yuichi Otsuka (Nagoya University, Japan) Dr. Amit Patra (National Atmospheric Research Laboratory, India) Dr. Brett Carter (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Australia) |
| Session Description | Ionospheric irregularities can seriously affect the performance and availability of satellite-based navigation and communication systems. Recent ground-based, satellite in-situ observations and theoretical simulations show various spatial and temporal variability in low latitude ionospheric irregularities that could be driven by lower atmosphere perturbations (e.g., planetary and gravity waves) and/or magnetosphere disturbances (e.g., prompt penetration and disturbance dynamo electric fields). This session will focus on the recent progress and current understanding of ionospheric irregularities, and space weather challenges related to ionospheric scintillation forecasts. Although the understanding on seasonal variations of low-latitude F region irregularities as a function of longitude has emerged reasonably well, there is considerable amount of uncertainty whether plasma irregularities would occur in a given night. This continues to challenge our capability in predicting the weather component of the plasma irregularities. Equally important is the rare occurrences of plasma irregularities during the off-seasons. These pose questions as to how the variations can be accounted for, and what observations can improve our understanding of irregularities and our scintillation forecast capabilities. Presentations on newly developed/deployed instruments (e.g., regional GNSS TEC/scintillation receiver network, VHF radar, and airglow imager), observational methods, and theoretical models focusing on the ionospheric irregularity are welcome. Observational and theoretical studies pertaining to the magnetosphere-ionosphere-atmosphere coupling processes that improve our understanding on the variability of ionosphere, and the impact and mitigation of ionospheric irregularities on GNSS and its applications are also encouraged. |