Study of thunderstorm induced ionospheric irregularity and plasma bubbles using NavIC data

Abstract

Severe thunderstorm which behave as an electric generator sometimes introduce an electric current up to few kiloampere to the global electric circuit due to cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning [1]. The navigation satellite signal in L band, which is basically used for positioning application, provides a good opportunity for monitoring of Ionosphere from signal propagation delay affected by the medium. An effort on monitoring the lightning influenced irregularities over the ionosphere has been made in this article. Ionosphere contained total electron content (TEC) variation has been computed from newly launched Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System NavIC. The availability of S band in NavIC provides an extra opportunity to study the nature of atmospheric variables in a different frequency band. Both L and S band studies of TEC variation during lightning event are incorporated and compared with its consecutive non-lightning days in this article. © 2020 URSI.