Plasma re-distribution in the African low-latitude ionosphere during intense geomagnetic storms

Abstract

Intense geomagnetic storms offer opportunity to understand ionospheric response to space weather events. Using Total Electron Content (TEC) data from stations along the east African sector, the two most intense storms during the 24th solar cycle, with similarly occurrence season and time were studied. We observe that ionospheric effect during the main phase is not a function of the severity of the storm, whereas the more intense storm shows greater influence on the African ionosphere during the recovery phase. Plasma movement within the equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) was evident particularly during the recovery phase, especially during the 2015 event. For both storms, the nighttime/early morning ionospheric effect is more pronounced than the daytime effects across all stations.

Keywords

• Disturbance Electric Field
• Equatorial ionosphere
• Geomagnetic storms
• GNSS