2002/02/20 by É. L. Afraimovich, E. L. Afraimovich, Afraimovich, E. L. +9
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #GNSS positioning and interference #Geophysics (physics.geo-ph) #Geophysics and Gravity Measurements #Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics #physics.geo-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.physics/0202052
LaTeX2.09, 9 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2002/02/20 · openalex publication_date 2002/02/20 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Using the geomagnetic storm of July 15, 2000 as an example, we investigated the dependence of GPS navigation system performance on the nightside at mid-latitudes on the level of geomagnetic disturbance. The investigation was based on the data from the global GPS system available through the Internet. It was shown that the number of GPS phase slips increases with the increasing level of disturbance and that there is a good correlation between the rate of Dst-variation and the frequency of slips. It was further shown that the relative frequency of slips has also a clearly pronounced aspect dependence. Phase slips of the GPS signal can be caused by the scattering from small-scale irregularities of the ionospheric E-layer. Phase slip characteristics are indicative of Farley-Buneman instabilities as a plausible physical mechanism that is responsible for the formation of geomagnetic field-aligned irregularities. Using simultaneous measurements of backscatter signal characteristics from the Irkutsk incoherent scatter radar and existing models for such irregularities, we estimated the order of magnitude of the expected phase fluctuations of the GPS signal at a few degrees.