On the use of ionosonde profiles in the Electron Density Assimilative Model (EDAM)

Ground based measurements of slant total electron content (TEC) can be assimilated into ionospheric models to produce 3D representations of ionospheric electron density. The Electron Density Assimilative Model (EDAM) has been developed for this purpose. Previous tests using EDAM and ground based data have demonstrated that the information on the vertical structure of the ionosphere is limited in this type of data. However, information regarding the profile peak below the F2 layer can be obtained by assimilating data from ionosondes into EDAM. EDAM assimilations, focused on the Republic of South Africa (RSA) have been run for periods in November 2008 and February/March 2009. For each run three datasets will be ingested: only GPS TEC data; only ionosonde data: GPS TEC data and ionosonde data.