An index description of the general characteristics of thermospheric
density based on the Two-Line-Element datasets and the Spectral
Whitening Method
Abstract
The thermospheric density and its variations are crucial to aerospace
activities as well as space weather research and operation. However, due
to the difficulties to observe the thermosphere, there has been a lack
of effective descriptions for the overall general characteristics of
thermospheric density. In this present paper, the Two-Line-Element
datasets (TLEs) from multi-target low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites are
used to derive a proxy of the daily average atmospheric density in the
thermospheric shell located in the vicinity of LEOs’ orbital altitude.
It captures the overall characteristics of the thermosphere and exhibits
good correlations (0.84) with modeled and observed thermospheric
density. By applying the spectral whitening method (SWM) to this proxy,
a new index JsT is derived to describe non-periodic perturbation of the
density where the specific satellite passed by. The fact that the JsT
obtained from different satellites within the same thermospheric shell
presents significant consistency to each other means that the new index
is a good indicator for the overall feature of the variations of
thermospheric density, and it is possible to define a unified regional
index JrT to describe density disturbances for the thermospheric shell
where these satellites flying through. Moreover, the JrT at different
altitudes also present good consistency suggesting the possibility of
defining a global index JpT, capable of describing the density variation
of the entire thermosphere.