Detection of disturbances caused by solar activity by drot method

Ionosphere is the layer in the upper atmosphere, which is also called plasma, located at altitudes from 50 to 1000 km. The importance of the ionosphere is its attenuating, absorbing and disturbing effect on signals in satellite communication systems and Short Wave communication. For this reason, detecting and modeling the structure and disturbances of the ionosphere makes it possible to make satellite communication and Short Wave communication healthier. Ionosphere can be significantly disturbed in space and time due to many factors such as geomagnetic, solar gravitational and seismic activity. The classification of these disturbances can be done according to their amplitude, duration and frequency. Ionospheric disturbances can be analyzed by using a gradient-based method on Total Electron Content (TEC) obtained from Global Positioning System receivers. In this study, to detect and to classify the disturbances in ionosphere over Turkey, a fast and automatic variability detection algorithm, Differential Rate Of TEC (DROT), is applied to GPS-TEC obtained from eighteen Turkish National Permanent GPS Network (TNPGN Active) stations between 2010 and 2012. When three years compared with each other, it is observed that the number of DROT ≥ 60% decreases from 2010 to 2011. When spatial and temporal comparison are considered together; it is observed that the number of DROT <50% values increases from 2010 to 2012 and the number of DROT> 70% values decreases from 2010 to 2012. DROT values increases from North to South and from East to the West in Turkey. It is observed that the stations in the southern region are most affected from daily disturbances.