Study of maximum electron density NmF2 at Karachi and Islamabad during solar minimum (1996) and solar maximum (2000) and its comparison with IRI Original Research Article

The monthly hourly medians of maximum electron density, NmF2, at two Pakistani ionospheric stations, Karachi and Islamabad, have been determined for solar minimum (1996) and solar maximum (2000) and compared with IRI predictions using the URSI coefficients. At night and pre-noon period the NmF2 values at both stations are almost equal during the 2 years. However, at post-noon the values at Karachi are considerably larger than those at Islamabad due to the equatorial or geomagnetic anomaly. Karachi (geomag. coord. 16.44°N, 139.08°E) lies near the region of the equatorial anomaly (+20 and −20 geomagnetic latitude), so most of the NmF2 values at Karachi are larger than those at Islamabad (geomag. coord. 24.46°N, 145.67°E). The maximum monthly values of NmF2 show a semi-annual variation at Karachi and Islamabad both during 1996 and 2000 as predicted by IRI.