Isolation of Ionospheric Events in GNSS Phase Scintillation Observations in the Arctic

Sarah S. Beeck, Daniel H. Olesen, and Cathryn N. Mitchell

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	In the Arctic, space weather poses a threat to satellite-based navigation by inducing fluctuations in the phase of the radio signal, termed phase scintillation. Therefore, reliable space weather alerts and scintillation models are needed for better warnings and understanding of the impact. For real-time space weather alerts to be valuable, identifying and removing high scintillation values caused by other processes is crucial before issuing space weather alerts. Similarly, for a database of a scintillation model, a distinction between the origin of extreme phase scintillation values could increase the model’s integrity. This can be a challenge for the phase scintillation index, ??, where other events, such as radio-interference, can result in high phase scintillation values that are not space weather related. In this paper, two methods for evaluating the origin of high ?? values are examined and their use in combination is discussed. The findings show that for three of the station sites in Greenland, less than one percent of high ?? values were not space-weather related. For the data collected in Kulusuk 46.85 percent of high ?? were not space weather and 53.15 % were related to space weather. Therefore, isolating these allows for a significant reduction of misassigned ??, which can improve both GNSS-based modelling and alert systems.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 2025 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 27 - 30, 2025 Hyatt Regency Long Beach Long Beach, California
Pages:	177 - 188
Cite this article:	Beeck, Sarah S., Olesen, Daniel H., Mitchell, Cathryn N., "Isolation of Ionospheric Events in GNSS Phase Scintillation Observations in the Arctic," Proceedings of the 2025 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Long Beach, California, January 2025, pp. 177-188. https://doi.org/10.33012/2025.20008
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