A ROTI-aided equatorial plasma bubbles detection method

Abstract

In this study, we present a Rate of Total Electron Content Index (ROTI)-aided equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) detection method based on a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC). This technique seeks the EPBs occurrence time according to the ROTI values and then extracts the detrended ionospheric TEC series, which include EPBs signals using a low-order, partial polynomial fitting strategy. The EPBs over the Hong Kong area during the year of 2014 were detected using this technique. The results show that the temporal distribution and occurrence of EPBs over the Hong Kong area are consistent with that of previous reports, and most of the TEC depletion error is smaller than 1.5 TECU (average is 0.63 TECU), suggesting that the detection method is feasible and highly accurate. Furthermore, this technique can extract the TEC depletion series more effectively, especially for those with a long duration, compared to previous method.