Ionospheric tilt measurements: application to TID climatology study

Ionospheric tilt is a concept used to characterize local horizontal electron density gradients in the ionosphere using a mirror reflection model. Experimental results are presented that illustrate the validity and accuracy of such approach. Analysis of the tilt measurements collected in 2012–2014 with a digisonde at Ebro observatory (40.8°N, 0.5°E) is presented. Digisonde systems allow measuring angles of arrival of ionospherically reflected radio signals, from which the ionospheric tilts are derived. The tilts are represented in terms of North-South and East-West components. Using several years of observations, a climatological distribution of wavelike variations in the tilt records presumed to be associated with traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) is established. Most of the observed TIDs have their main periods of 30 min to 1.5 hr which is rather typical for medium-scale TIDs. Summertime appears to have the most frequent occurrence of TIDs. There is a good agreement between the presence of TIDs and sporadic E layer occurrence, suggesting that some TIDs can be driven by instability in the electric field which is initiated via an interhemispheric link between the E and F regions of the ionosphere. Direction of disturbance propagation is also analyzed and compared to the modeled neutral wind. There are indications that during the daytime TIDs tend to propagate in the direction opposite to the background neutral wind. This suggests that daytime TIDs are produced by atmospheric gravity waves originating in the lower atmosphere and experiencing background wind filtering effect on their upward propagation.