Comparison of AATR and WTEC indices in the studies of the level of ionospheric disturbance

TL;DR

This study compares AATR and WTEC ionospheric disturbance indices, revealing their proportionality at high disturbance levels and differing sensitivities at low levels, with correlations varying by latitude and geomagnetic activity.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of AATR and WTEC indices, highlighting their relationships and sensitivities to various geophysical factors across different latitudes.

Findings

AATR is proportional to WTEC at high disturbance levels.

WTEC is more sensitive to disturbances than AATR at low levels.

Indices correlate with geomagnetic and solar activity differently by latitude.

Abstract

A comparative statistical analysis of AATR and WTEC indices was conducted based on data from the ISTP SB RAS GNSS receivers network. It is shown that at high levels of ionospheric disturbance (for WTEC > 0.1 TECU), the AATR index is proportional to the WTEC index with a factor of $1.5min^{-1}$. At small levels of ionospheric disturbance (for WTEC < 0.1 TECU), this proportionality is violated. It is shown that the contribution of daily dynamics of the background ionosphere to the AATR index is higher than to the WTEC index. This leads to a higher sensitivity of the WTEC index to disturbances. This also leads to violating the proportionality between WTEC and AATR indices at low levels of ionospheric disturbance. It is shown that at high latitudes the dynamics of the WTEC and AATR indices correlate significantly with the level of geomagnetic disturbance Kp. At mid-latitudes, the contribution of solar radiation variations (F10.7 index) and vertical seismic variations exceeds the influence of Kp variations. The program for calculating WTEC indices, used in the paper is put into open access.