Variation of Solar Wind Parameters and Total Electron Content from
Indian, Australian, Brazilian and South African Sectors during the
Intense Geomagnetic Storms
Abstract
In this paper, we present the variations of IMF-Bz, Solar wind
Parameters (Vsw, Nsw, and Psw), and Geomagnetic Indices (AE and SYM-H),
and the variation of Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) using
simultaneous VTEC data from 12 GPS-TEC stations over the Indian,
Australian, Brazilian and South African regions. We describe contrast in
Total Electron Content (TEC) throughout the globe using global
ionospheric maps at regular 2-hour interval of UT during the three
intense geomagnetic storms. Moreover, we observed that heavily TEC
influenced areas were found to be transposing through equatorial plane
starting from eastern sectors to the western sectors. Indian Ocean,
Atlantic Ocean and South Pacific Ocean sectors were affected flowingly.
Global Ionospheric Maps evince that Indian and Brazilian sectors were
affected heavily explaining the TID and Equatorial Anomaly as seen on
those areas. The equatorial and low-latitude regions have been mainly
affected by the geomagnetic storms. All these results suggested that the
acute disruption of global winds (surging towards the equator from
higher latitudes) and electric fields commenced from
magnetosphere-ionosphere interaction cause the severe modification in
the equatorial, low-latitude region. We checked the cross correlation
during the period of high solar and geomagnetic activities; the
correlation gradually increased with the near by stations by latitudes
in most of the cases which was another intriguing result. the storms
were affected globally which is why we believe that variation of TEC
over various stations of the globe could turn out to be very helpful in
predicting solar wind coupling with magnetosphere-ionospehere.