Full Solar-cycle analysis of the TEC temporal cycle analysis of the TEC temporal variability using TOPEX

AZPILICUETA F.; RADICELLA S.; BRUNINI C.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Congreso; International Association of Geodesy Scientific Assembly 2009; 2009

The TOPEX/Poseidon satellite was a jointly mission conducted by NASA from the United States and CNES from France with the main purpose of providing sea surface height determination with an unprecedented precision level. In order to achieve the extremely demanding precision level, few centimeters precision on the sea surface height measurement, TOPEX/Poseidon satellite was the first mission of its type carrying a state-of-the-art double frequency radar on board, so to eliminate the errors that the ionosphere produces on the radio signal transmitted by the radar. As a geophysical by-product, the mission scientific team provided to the scientific community with high precision Total Electron Content (TEC) determinations. In this work, we use TOPEX TEC determinations for a period that spans though a complete solar cycle, to investigate the temporal signals that are present on the TEC measurements. When the data series is processed using a power spectrum filter, the results reveal several periodic signals, starting with the dominant 11-year solar-cycle component, with a clear double peak; and ending with the 27-day period for the solar rotation. The investigation is structured so to put special emphasis on the comparison of the different behaviors found in two magnetic equivalent regions of the South Atlantic and the South Pacific Oceans, so to study the influence that the South Atlantic Anomaly has on the electron distribution over this region.