Equatorial ionospheric irregularities have a significant detrimental impact on a variety of space application systems in navigation and communication areas that utilize satellites, especially the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) network. The development of these irregularities in the nighttime ionosphere is controlled primarily by ionospheric electric fields and instabilities. The effect of magnetic disturbance on these electric fields and on the irregularities is investigated here.

We present new results on the behavior of sporadic E layers (Es layers) using GPS (global positioning system) radio occultation (RO) measurements obtained from the FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC satellites and digisonde data over Cachoeira Paulista, a low-latitude station in Brazil.

Global coverage measurements made by satellites have provided observational studies which have shown the presence of four peaks in global longitudinal structures from global local time observations of equatorial ionization anomalies. The structures seen in the ionosphere are related to the diurnal non-migrating wave that comes from the troposphere and can be noticed in periods of low and high solar activity in the low-latitude ionosphere regions, mainly at altitudes from ~ 250 km up to ~ 800 km.

This paper analyzes the influence of the recent deep and prolonged solar minimum on the daytime zonal and vertical plasma drift velocities during quiet time over Jicamarca, Peru. Our results show that an anomalously low zonal wind was mainly responsible for the observed anomalous behavior in the zonal drift followed by a decrease in the E-region conductivity and the dynamo electric field during 2008.