Application of the models of the middle and upper atmosphere to simulation of total electron content perturbations caused by the 2009 stratospheric warming

Abstract

Sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) is a unique atmospheric phenomenon, which consists in a rapid rise of temperature at altitudes of ~30–40 km in high latitudes of the winter, typically, northern hemisphere. Modeling SSW effects in the mesosphere, thermosphere, and ionosphere is a challenging problem, because it must be done on a global scale, with consideration of numerous physical and chemical processes. This paper reports the results of calculations of the characteristics of total electron content (TEC) perturbations for the conditions of the SSW event in January 2009. The calculations are performed using the Global Self-Consistent Model of the Thermosphere, Ionosphere and Protonosphere (GSM TIP) supplemented by the lower boundary conditions in the form of space–time distributions of the basic parameters of the mesosphere at an altitude of 80 km, as calculated by the SOCOL, KASIMA, and TIME GCM models. The simulation results show that, for some versions, the spatial distribution of total electron content disturbances ΔTEC shows a qualitative agreement with experimental data; however, the values of ΔTEC in all variants of calculations proved to be an order of magnitude lower than the measured.