Gobal vTEC maps based on combined GPS and TOPEX/Jason measurements

BIBBO I.; BRUNINI C.; AZPILICUETA F.

Barcelona

Simposio; International Beacon Satellite Symposium 2010; 2010

Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya

A variety of dual-frequency beacons orbiting the Erath are today used to characterize the spatial and temporal variability of important ionospheric parameters, such as electron density (Ne) and the total electron content (TEC). The conspicuous exponent of these family, the GPS and TOPEX/Poseidon (and its follow-on missions, Jason), are today fully integrated to the battery of observational tools used by the aeronomy community.  In this contribution we present a method for combining GPS and TOPEX/Jason observation in a consistent model approximation, which exploits the complementary benefits of both techniques. Basically, TOPEX/Jason observations are used to improve the calibration of the GPS satellite and receiver instrumental biases, and to improve the vTEC interpolation in open ocean regions, while GPS observations are used to achieve high temporal resolution of the vTEC variability.