Investigation of the relationship between the spatial gradient of total electron content (TEC) between two nearby stations and the occurrence of ionospheric irregularities

Dugassa, Teshome; Bosco Habarulema, John; Nigussie, Melessew

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-37-1161-2019

Articles | Volume 37, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-37-1161-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Vertical coupling in the atmosphere–ionosphere system

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-37-1161-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 37, issue 6

Regular paper

|

13 Dec 2019

Regular paper |

| 13 Dec 2019

Investigation of the relationship between the spatial gradient of total electron content (TEC) between two nearby stations and the occurrence of ionospheric irregularities

Teshome Dugassa, John Bosco Habarulema, and Melessew Nigussie

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Final revised paper (published on 13 Dec 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 07 Dec 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Reviewer comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 06 Jan 2019
- AC1: 'Response to reviewers’ comments on the manuscript angeo-2018-131-RC1:', Teshome Dugassa, 26 Feb 2019
RC2: 'Review of manuscript # angeo-2018-131', Anonymous Referee #2, 21 Mar 2019
- AC2: 'Response to reviewers' comments on the manuscript angeo-2018-131-RC2: Spatial gradient of total electron content (TEC) between two nearby stations as indicator of occurrence of ionospheric irregularity', Teshome Dugassa, 12 Apr 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (26 Apr 2019) by Erdal Yiğit

AR by Teshome Dugassa on behalf of the Authors (04 Jun 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (04 Jul 2019) by Erdal Yiğit

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (26 Jul 2019)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (05 Aug 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review report for article # angeo-2018-131
Title: Investigation of the relationship between the spatial gradient of total electron content (TEC) between two nearby stations and the occurrence of ionospheric irregularity
Author(s): Teshome Dugassa et al.
MS No.: angeo-2018-131

Dear Editor

I have gone through the revised manuscript in detail. It looks much improved. In this paper the authors try to relate the spatial gradient in TEC between to close-by stations to the ionospheric irregularities. They use the standard ROTI-index as a reference. I am still not convinced though that the spatial gradient can be effectively used as a proxy to detect ionospheric irregularities. The authors have not shown enough evidence in the manuscript. However, the paper can still be recommended for publication (after major revision) to float this idea for the scientific community. However, I still have a few questions.

Comments:

1.

Figure 4: This figure shows a comparison of spatial gradient in TEC on days with/without irregularities. If you take a closer look at Figures 4b, 4c, 4d, , the spatial gradient (σ) is around 0.5. These represent days with irregularities.

On the other hand, Figures 4f, 4g, 4h represent days without ionospheric irregularities. But the value of the spatial gradient (σ) is still around 0.5. But ROTI shows clear difference on days with/without irregularities.

This brings into question the entire ability of the spatial gradient (σ) to detect irregularities.

2.
Figures 3 and 4:

Figure 3 shows the variation of spatial gradient for 4 different days a) 30 March 2014, b) 10 April 2014, c) 20 September 2014 and d) 10 October 2014

Figure 4(a-d) also represent the same set of days.
However the spatial gradient (σ) looks entirely different in the 2 figures although they represent the same days. How is that possible?

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (16 Aug 2019) by Erdal Yiğit

AR by Teshome Dugassa on behalf of the Authors (18 Sep 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (06 Oct 2019) by Erdal Yiğit

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (02 Nov 2019)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (04 Nov 2019)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (05 Nov 2019) by Erdal Yiğit

AR by Teshome Dugassa on behalf of the Authors (14 Nov 2019) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

The relation between the occurrence of ionospheric irregularities and the spatial gradient of TEC derived from two closely located stations, located within the equatorial region over Ethiopia, was investigated. The relationship between σ(∆TEC/∆long) and ROTI_ave correlate linearly with correlation coefficients of C = 0.7975 and C = 0.7915 over ASAB and DEBK, respectively. In addition to latitudinal gradients, the longitudinal gradient of TEC has a significant contribution to the TEC fluctuations.