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Advances in Space Research 33 (2004) 893901
www.elsevier.com/locate/asr
Abstract
Using data from more than a hundred ionospheric stations spread worldwide, day-to-day variations with location and time of the
conventional maximum usable frequency (MUF) decile values are investigated. New bounds of day-to-day MUF variability are
calculated and compared with reference gures currently used by radio users. An hourly-daily validation process shows a clear
improvement of spatial bias and model accuracy. A signicant dependence on longitude is revealed that might be introduced into
future specications.
2003 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Table 1
List of stations and period of MUF data considered in this analysis
Station Geographic IGRF Corrected Dip () Modip () Period of data
Latitude () Longitude () Geomagnetic Latitude ()
Table 1 (continued)
Station Geographic IGRF Corrected Dip () Modip () Period of data
Latitude () Longitude () Geomagnetic Latitude ()
particularities of individual solar cycles and allow to stations are identied by the code names as specied in
detect long-term trends of geomagnetic control (Mik- Table 1. Three longitudinal sections are considered: Eu-
hailov and Marin, 2000). Detailed information about rope/Africa (330E50E), Asia/Australia (50E180E)
used stations including code name, location, modied and America (180E330E). Data from European sta-
magnetic dip, corrected magnetic latitude (CML) after tions were extracted from the COST 251 cd-rom, whereas
the IGRF model (Campbell, 1997), arbitrarily for the all other measurements were retrieved from the SPIDR
year 1986 and a 300 km height, is contained in Table 1. Webserver of the NGDC, Boulder, CO, USA.
(This information can be downloaded from the fol- The ratio of each hourly daily MUF value to its cor-
lowing web site: http://genesis.ee.auth.gr/kouris/english/ responding monthly median is calculated for each day
pgstudents/DNF_les/stationlist_table1.doc). In Table 2, and month, for all years and stations, then the upper and
896 D.N. Fotiadis et al. / Advances in Space Research 33 (2004) 893901
Fig. 1. Diurnal variations (abscissa) of upper and lower MUF decile factors (ordinate) for latitudinal strips (panel number) in three seasons (col-
umns). Full line: American data, heavy dashed line: European data, dashed line: Asian/Australian data. (a) Low solar activity range (R12 < 50), (b)
Medium solar activity range (50 6 R12 6 100), (c) High solar activity range (R12 > 100).
898 D.N. Fotiadis et al. / Advances in Space Research 33 (2004) 893901
Fig. 1 (continued )
D.N. Fotiadis et al. / Advances in Space Research 33 (2004) 893901 899
Fig. 1 (continued )
900 D.N. Fotiadis et al. / Advances in Space Research 33 (2004) 893901
Table 3
Average root mean square error values among corresponding calculated MUF decile values in each latitudinal strip and dierent longitude sectors
Latitudinal R12 < 50 50 6 R12 6 100 R12 < 100
strip no.
WN SM EQ WN SM EQ WN SM EQ
3 0.08 0.03 0.11 0.12 0.02 0.06 0.14 0.05 0.11
4 0.07 0.02 0.04 0.09 0.01 0.02 0.13 0.02 0.05
5 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.02 0.09 0.04 0.04 0.05
6 0.02 0.04 0.02 0.05 0.04 0.02 0.03 0.03 0.02
7 0.04 0.03 0.01 0.06 0.04 0.02 0.05 0.02 0.04
8 0.02 0.06 0.06 0.07 0.03 0.02 0.10 0.03 0.05
9 0.04 0.04 0.02 0.04 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.02
10 0.07 0.07 0.10 0.09 0.04 0.08 0.05 0.03 0.01
12 0.08 0.03 0.08 0.08 0.02 0.10 0.07 0.02 0.09
13 0.05 0.02 0.03 0.06 0.02 0.05 0.07 0.03 0.05
14 0.07 0.03 0.05 0.07 0.03 0.03 0.08 0.02 0.06
15 0.17 0.04 0.08 0.22 0.02 0.10 0.24 0.07 0.06
ranges. These standards are not here investigated. In magnetic coordinate calculations. Special thanks to Dr.
order to test the reliability of our results, the overall R.O. Conkright for providing data from the NGDC
mean error (R{ME}) and the root mean square error database at Boulder, Co. The authors are mostly
(RMSE) between hourly daily MUF values and deciles grateful to Professor Karl Rawer for his suggestions in
(by ITU-R/our model), were calculated for the control revising, improving the initial material and his encour-
stations. Fig. 2 shows the spatial distribution of these agement to forward this work to publication.
indicators. It can be seen that there is an overall cor-
rection of the order of 34% with our model in most
regions, except for America wherefrom ITU-R obtained
its basic data (Davis and Groome, 1964). Furthermore, References
there is a clear dierence in the trend of the total mean
error in the Asian sector where ITU error constantly Bradley, P., Kutiev, I., Muhtarov, P. Day-to-day variability of the
increases with latitude, from mid-latitude polewards. basic MUF, in: Hanbaba, R., de la Morena, B. (Eds.), COST 251/
Workshop on Procedures and Testing of the Models for Iono-
The overall correction arises only from the fact that
spheric Telecommunications Application. Universidad de Huelva,
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are apparently not taken into account in ITU-R (1997), Campbell, W.H. Introduction to Geomagnetic Fields. Cambridge
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a global scale shows that the new gures at specic lon- Kouris, S.S., Fotiadis, D.N. Ionospheric variability: a comparative
gitude sectors are more accurate than those of ITU-R, statistical study. Adv. Space Res. 29 (6), 977985, 2002.
currently used by the international radio community. Kouris, S.S., Fotiadis, D.N., Hanbaba, R. On the day-to-day variation
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optimum latitude strip sizes in space only, not in time.
Mikhailov, A.V., Marin, D. Geomagnetic control of fo F2 long-term
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