The three-dimensional ionospheric electron density imaging in Japan using the approximate Kalman filter algorithm

The three-dimensional ionospheric electron density (Ne) over Japan is retrieved by assimilating the ground-based total electron content (TEC) datasets into the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) background model. To reduce the computational burdens encountered in the full Kalman filter (KF) algorithm, the simplified KF (SKF), a time-independent data assimilation scheme with no recursion, is adopted. The spatial resolution is 1 degrees, 1 degrees, and 30 km in latitude, longitude, and altitude, and the temporal resolution is 1 h. Regarding the quite geomagnetic condition, seasonal variations in the ionosphere were investigated firstly. The results show that the reconstructed Ne could well capture the seasonal ionospheric characteristics and semiannual anomaly. Subsequently, NmF2 (F2 layer peak electron density) values during April 3-9, 2013 (high solar activity) and 2018 (low solar activity) were reproduced and simulated by the SKF and IRI model, respectively. In contrast with the ionosonde data, the results indicated the reconstructed NmF2 was apt to capture the underlying trends of diurnal and annual variations more accurately. For the efficiency under the disturbed geomagnetic condition, we took a great geomagnetic storm that happened on August 26, 2018 as an example. The reproduced results also provided better imaging for Ne distributions by analyzing the vertical slices and profiles provided by SKF and IRI. It is suggested that the SKF algorithm is promising for ionospheric researches and practical applications in Japan.