Occurrences of Regional Strong E s Irregularities and Corresponding Scintillations Characterized Using a High-Temporal-Resolution GNSS Network (original) (raw)

The ionospheric sporadic E (E s) layer is a thin metallic layer produced by wind shears in the height of 90-130 km (Whitehead, 1989). The density of E s is much higher than the background E region and can be even higher than the F layer of the ionosphere, thus density irregularities of various scales can be embedded in the E s structures and cause scintillation or even loss of lock of radio signals within various frequency bands (e.g., Chatterjee et al., 2013; Seif et al., 2015). It is demonstrated that the occurrence of E s is the highest during local summer (e.g., Chu et al., 2014). Physical mechanisms, such as the meteoric influxes, the electric