Ionospheric scintillation models: An inter-comparison study using GNSS data

Abstract

Existing climatological ionosphere models, for example, GISM, SCIONAV, WBMOD, and STIPEE, have known limitations that prevent their wide use. In the framework of ESA study “Radio Climatology Models of the Ionosphere: Status and Way Forward” their performance was assessed using experimental observations of ionospheric scintillation collected over the past years to evaluate their ability to properly support future missions, and eventually indicate their weaknesses for future improvements. Model limitations are more important in terms of the intensity scintillation parameter (S4). To improve them, the COSMIC model has been fit (scaling factor and offset) to the measured data, and it became the one better predicting the intensity scintillation in a statistical sense.