Ionospheric Scintillation Modelling

Abstract

The phenomenon of ionospheric scintillations has long been observed by radio astronomers and physicists. The observations have provided valuable information towards the (qualitative) morphology of the phenomenon. The (quantitative) information about scintillation effects for today's satellite system design is rather meagre. Thus, it is not possible to know (and predict) as to how much of the time a given level of scintillation activity will remain in different parts of the world. It is shown that a more organized approach towards the collection and dissemination of data, in time and geographic location, is needed for a realistic worldwide model of ionospheric scintillations.