Global Ionospheric Response to Intense Variations of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity According to the Data of the GNSS Global Networks of Navigation Receivers

The global response of the ionosphere to intense geomagnetic storms and variations of the solar activity according to the solar flux F 10.7 is considered. As a source of information, data on total electron content (TEC) calculated from measurements of the global network of receivers of the global navigation satellite systems are used. Unlike many publications, where the effects of individual unique geophysical events are studied in detail (for example, the superstorm of October 28, 2003), we considered the effects of strong storms ( Dst ≤ –80 nT) starting from 2005. The main attention was paid to the dependence on the onset time of the main phase of the storm relative to local time/longitude, as well as the dependence of the intensity of the ionospheric response on latitude. To display the ionospheric effects of magnetic storms, a visual image was used – a two-dimensional representation in the day-local time format, which was used to visualize ionospheric earthquake precursors. This approach also makes it possible to visualize the effects of solar activity variations according to the F 10.7 index and to distinguish them from ionospheric variations during geomagnetic storms. As a result, it was possible to create a generalized global “pattern” of a geomagnetic storm in the Earth’s ionosphere.