Measuring GNSS ionospheric total electron content at Concordia, and application to L-band radiometers

In the framework of the project BIS - Bipolar Ionospheric Scintillation and Total Electron Content Monitoring, the ISACCO-DMC0 and ISACCO-DMC1 permanent monitoring stations were installed in 2008.
The principal scope of the stations is to measure the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) and to monitor the ionospheric scintillations, using high-sampling-frequency global positioning system (GPS) ionospheric scintillation and TEC monitor (GISTM) receivers. The disturbances that
the ionosphere can induce on the electromagnetic signals emitted by the
Global Navigation Satellite System constellations are due to the presence
of electron density anomalies in the ionosphere, which are particularly frequent
at high latitudes, where the upper atmosphere is highly sensitive to
perturbations coming from outer space. With the development of present and future low-frequency space-borne microwave missions (e.g., Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity [SMOS], Aquarius, and Soil Moisture Active
Passive missions), there is an increasing need to estimate the effects of the ionosphere on the propagation of electromagnetic waves that affects
satellite measurements. As an example, how the TEC data collected at Concordia station are useful for the calibration of the European Space Agency SMOS data within the framework of an experiment promoted by the European Space Agency (known as DOMEX) will be discussed.
The present report shows the ability of the GISTM station to monitor ionospheric scintillation and TEC, which indicates that only the use of continuous GPS measurements can provide accurate information on TEC
variability, which is necessary for continuous calibration of satellite data.

Abraham, S., and D.M. Le Vine (2004). Use of IRI to
model the effect of ionosphere emission on Earth
remote sensing at L-band, Adv. Space Res., 34,
2059-2066.
Alfonsi, L., L. Spogli, G. De Franceschi, V. Romano, M.
Aquino, A. Dodson and C.N. Mitchell (2011). Bipolar
climatology of GPS ionospheric scintillation at
solar minimum, Radio Sci., 46, RS0D05; doi:10.102
9/2010RS004571.
Committee on the Societal and Economic Impacts of
Severe Space Weather Events (2008). Severe Space
Weather Events – Understanding Societal and Economic
Impacts Workshop Report, ISBN 0-309-
12770-X.
Davis, K. (1990). Ionospheric Radio, London, Peregrinus,
p. 276.
Fisher, G., and J. Kunches (2011). Building resilience of
the global positioning system to space weather, Space
Weather, 9, S12004; doi:10.1029/2011SW000718.
Floury, N. (2007). Estimation of Faraday rotation from
auxiliary data, ESA Technical Note, TEC-EEP/2009.
437/NF.
Freeman, A., and S.S. Saatchi (2004). On the detection of Faraday rotation in linearly polarized L-band SAR backscatter signatures, Trans. on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 42 (8), 1607-1616. Kerr, Y.H., P. Waldteufel, J-P. Wigneron, F. Cabot, J.
Boutin, M-J. Escorihuela, N. Reul, C. Gruhier, S. Juglea,
J. Font, S. Delwart, M.R. Drinkwater, A. Hahne,
M. Martin-Neira and S. Mecklenburg (2010). The
SMOS mission: a new tool for monitoring key elements
of the global water cycle, Proc. IEEE, 98666-
98687; doi:10.1109/JPROC.2010.2043032.
Le Vine, D.M., and S. Abraham (2000). Faraday rotation
and passive microwave remote sensing of soil
moisture from space, In: P. Pampaloni and S. Paloscia
(eds.), Microwave Radiometry and Remote Sensing
of the Earth's Surface and Atmosphere, Utrecht/
Boston/Köln/Tokyo, 89-96.
Liu, Z., S. Skone, Y. Gao and A. Komjathy (2005). Ionospheric
modeling using GPS data, GPS Sol., 9 (1), 63-
66; doi:10.1007/s10291-004-0129-z.
Macelloni, G., M. Brogioni, P. Pampaloni, A. Cagnati
and M.R. Drinkwater (2006). DOMEX 2004: An experimental
campaign at Dome-C Antarctica for the
calibration of spaceborne low-frequency microwave
radiometers, Geosci. Rem. Sens., IEEE Transact.,
44, 2642-2653.
Macelloni, G., M. Brogioni, A. Crepaz, M. Drinkwater
and J. Zaccaria (2009). DOMEX-2: L-band microwave
emission measurements of the Antarctic Plateau,
Geosci. Rem. Sens. Symposium, 2009 IEEE International,
IGARSS, 2, II-1016-II-1019.
Mannucci, A.J., B.D. Wilson and C.D. Edwards (1993).
A new method for monitoring the Earth ionosphere
total electron content using the GPS global network,
In: Proceedings of ION GPS-93, 1323-1332.
Meissner, T., and F.J. Wentz (2006). Polarization rotation
and the third Stokes parameter: the effects of
spacecraft attitude and Faraday rotation, Trans.
Geosci. Rem. Sens., 44, 506-515.
Romano, V., S. Pau, M. Pezzopane, E. Zuccheretti, B.
Zolesi, G. De Franceschi and S. Locatelli (2008). The
Electronic Space Weather Upper Atmosphere
(eSWua) project at INGV: advances and state of the
art, Annales Geophysicae, 26, 345-351.
Sardon, E., A. Rius and N. Zarraoa (1994). Estimation
of the transmitter and receiver differential biases and
the ionospheric total electon content from global positioning
system observations, Radio Sci. 29, 577.
Spogli, L., L. Alfonsi, G. De Franceschi, V. Romano,
M.H.O. Aquino and A. Dodson (2009). Climatology
of GPS ionospheric scintillations over high and midlatitude
European regions, Annales Geophysicae,
27, 3429-3437.
Spogli, L., L. Alfonsi, G. De Franceschi, V. Romano, M. H. O. Aquino and A. Dodson (2010). Climatologyof GNSS ionospheric scintillations at high and midlatitudes
under different solar activity conditions, Il Nuovo Cimento B, 5/6, 623-632; doi:10.1393/ncb/i
2010-10857-7.
Taylor, J.R. (1997). An Introduction to Error Analysis:
The Study of Uncertainties in Physical Measurement,
2nd ed., University Science Books, Sausalito,
California.
Tsang, L. (1991). Polarimetric passive remote sensing
of random discrete scatterers and rough surfaces, J.
Electromag. Waves Appl., 5, 41-57.
Van Dierendonck, A.J., J. Klobuchar and Q. Hua (1993).
Ionospheric scintillation monitoring using commercial
single frequency C/A code receivers, In: ION
GPS-93 Proceedings of the Sixth International Technical
Meeting of the Satellite Division of the Institute
of Navigation (Salt Lake City, U.S.A.), 1333-1342.
Webb, P.A., and E.A. Essex (1997). A simple model of the
ionosphere plasmasphere system, In: A. Kulessa, G.
James, D. Bateman and M. Tobar (eds.), Proceedings
of the Workshop on Applications of Radio Science,
(WARS'97, Barossa Valley, Australia), 190-195.
Wernik, A.W., J.A. Secan and E.J. Fremouw (2003).
Ionospheric irregularities and scintillation, Adv.
Space Res., 31, 971-981.
Yeh, K.C., and C.H. Liu (1982). Radio wave scintillations
in the ionosphere, Proceedings of the IEEE 70
(4), 324-360.
Yueh, S.H. (2000). Estimates of Faraday rotation withpassive microwave polarimetry for microwave remotesensing of Earth surfaces, Trans. Geosci. Rem. Sens., 38, 2434-2438.