Statistics of GPS scintillations over South America at three levels of solar activity

This study characterizes low-latitude scintillations at L-band frequency in South America on daily, monthly, and seasonal time scales at three levels of solar activity: high, moderate and low levels. Three years (November 2001–October 2002, 2004 and 2008) of amplitude scintillation data from GPS receivers at three locations: Cuzco (14.0°S, 73.0°W, dip 1.0°S), Iquitos (3.8°S, 73.2°W, dip 7.0°N), and Bogota (4.4°N, 74.1°W, dip 16.0°N) were used for the investigation. These data were grouped into daily, monthly, and seasonal sets. We introduced tests on the data to reject signal fluctuations from non-ionospheric sources, such as multipath from terrestrial objects. The scintillation events from the data were further classified into three levels: weak (0.3 ≤ S4 < 0.4), moderate (0.4 ≤ S4 < 0.7), and intense (S4 ≥ 0.7) scintillations and their monthly percentage of occurrences and durations were determined. We also used the seasonal averages of daily (1900 LT–2000 LT) TEC values to observe the variability of the equatorial anomaly using a chain of ten GPS receivers that are located at a latitudinal span of 10°N–40°S along the west coast of South America. This study concludes that GPS scintillations in this longitude sector are post-sunset events and decay before or around local midnight, with intense activity and longer durations in the months of March and January. On seasonal time scales, the highest frequencies and longest durations of events were recorded during March Equinox and December Solstice. The months of May–July (June Solstice) had the least frequencies of occurrence and durations of events. Scintillation activity also increases with solar activity. Finally, scintillations increase in frequencies of occurrence and durations from Cuzco (near the magnetic equator) toward Bogota (near the crest of the equatorial anomaly) during solar maximum. However, a gradual collapse of the anomaly crest, away from Bogota toward Iquitos was observed as solar activity decreases, and as a result, the occurrence frequencies of scintillations at Iquitos increase relative to those at Bogota.