Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: In this work, we study ionospheric disturbances excited by the passage of the solar terminator (ST) during tropical cyclones, using total electron content (TEC) data. We have considered 16 intense tropical cyclones (typhoons) that acted in the northwest of the Pacific Ocean near the territory of Japan. We analyze two-dimensional distributions of the number of registered wave packets (WPs) depending on various parameters: local time, WP maximum amplitude, and distance to typhoon. It is shown that in most cases the maximum number of WPs is observed at a distance less than 500–1500 km from the typhoon center and near the time of evening solar terminator passage. For typhoons occurring during autumn periods, the maximum number of WPs is recorded at daytime, and, apparently, is not associated with ST. Distributions of the number of WPs depending on their amplitude have a similar form for all the cases considered, with a maximum of about 0.2 TECU. At the same time, for some typhoons there are a large number of WPs with amplitude up to 0.6–0.8 TECU, which is significantly higher than WP amplitudes under quiet conditions. We briefly discuss the mechanism of possible interaction between ionospheric disturbances caused by two different sources (tropical cyclones and ST passage).
Source: Solar-Terrestrial Physics
Institution: Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics
Language: English
Subfield: Space and Planetary Science
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2811113809