English

Ionospheric response to the total solar eclipse of June 21, 2001

Geophysics 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

We discuss the measurements of the main parameters of the ionospheric response to the total solar eclipse of June 21, 2001. This study is based on using the data from three stations of the global GPS network located in the area of the totality band in Africa. This period was characterized by a low level of geomagnetic disturbance (the Dst-index varied from -6 to 22 nT), which alleviated greatly the problem of detecting the ionospheric response to eclipse. An analysis revealed a clearly pronounced effect of a decrease (depression) of the total electron content (TEC) for all GPS stations. The delay between the smallest value of the TEC with respect to eclipse totality was 9-37 min. The depth and duration of the TEC depression were 0.5-0.9 TECU and 30-67 min, respectively. The results obtained in this study are in good agreement with earlier measurements and theoretical estimations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.physics/0201047,
  title  = {Ionospheric response to the total solar eclipse of June 21, 2001},
  author = {E. L. Afraimovich and O. S. Lesyuta},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0201047},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

LaTeX2.09, 20 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables, agums.sty (the style file)