Affiliation:
1. Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences China Meteorological Administration Beijing China
2. Key Laboratory of Space Weather National Satellite Meteorological Center (National Center for Space Weather) China Meteorological Administration Beijing China
3. Innovation Center for FengYun Meteorological Satellite (FYSIC) Beijing China
Abstract
AbstractThe thermospheric density and its variations are crucial to aerospace activities as well as space weather research and operation. However, due to the difficulties in observing the thermosphere, there has been a lack of effective descriptions for the general characteristics of thermospheric density. In this paper, the Two‐Line‐Element data sets (TLEs) from multi‐target low Earth orbit 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 (∼0.9) with modeled and observed thermospheric density. By applying the spectral whitening method to this proxy, a new index is derived to describe non‐periodic perturbation of the density where the specific satellite passed by. The fact that the 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 to describe density disturbances for the thermospheric shell where these satellites fly through. Moreover, the at different altitudes also present good consistency suggesting the possibility of defining a global index , capable of describing the density variation of the entire thermosphere.
Funder
National Natural Science Foundation of China
China Meteorological Administration
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)