Ionospheric Response to the Geomagnetic Storm on August 21, 2003 Over China Using GNSS-Based Tomographic Technique

The impacts of the August 21, 2003 geomagnetic storm on the ionosphere over China have been first investigated by using the so-called computerized ionospheric tomography (CIT) technique and the observations of the Crustal Movement Observation Network of China. Tomographic results show that the main ionospheric effects of this geomagnetic storm over China are as follows: (1) the negative storm phase effect appears in the F region and (2) the positive storm phase effect occurs above the F region. Meanwhile, some key features in the ionospheric structure have been revealed in the ionospheric images during the storm; this includes the disturbances and an elongated region of the reduced electron density at the latitude around 32°N. Statistical comparisons are carried out to confirm the reliability of the global-navigation-satellite-system-based CIT reconstruction results using the profile obtained from ionosonde observations.