Validation of the Paramaterized Real-Time Ionospheric Specification Model (PRISM)
Abstract
The earth's ionosphere between 60km and 1000km altitude contains a significant amount of partially ionized plasma that affects the propagation of radio waves. This plasma is created when extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light from the sun strips electrons from the neutral molecules in the Earth's atmosphere. The ionosphere's free electron density is highly variable and often unstable and can adversely affect Department of Defence systems which rely on radio wave propagation. These effects include: inaccurate position readings from GPS satellites, communication disturbances, and communication outages. The Air Force Research Laboratory has developed a Parameterized Real-time Ionospheric Specification Model (PRISM) that specifies the density of free electrons in the ionosphere on a global scale. This research will focus on validating PRISM using data from GPS satellites, the Digital Portable Sounding (DPS) network, and TOPEX/Poseidon data. In order to do a complete performance analysis, several time periods (3-6 weeks) of varying solar activity will be selected. Once these periods are selected PRISM will be initialized two different ways. The first initialization will be made without any real time input data and the output will be purely PRISM climatology. As for the second initialization PRISM will be given the real time data that the Air Force Weather Agency uses and the output will be an
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA418923
Entities
People
- Robert C. Pulliam
Organizations
- Ohio State University