Dr. Jens Berdermann (German Aerospace Center - DLR , Neustrelitz)

Space Weather and its influence on the Ionosphere

The Ionosphere group of the institute of communication and navigation at DLR is involved in ionospheric monitoring, modelling and studying the ionospheric impact on radio signals since many years. The ionosphere is a significant error source of the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) error budget and can induce range errors from a few meters to tens of meters at the zenith or during strong geomagnetic storm conditions. Therefore a very large amount of ionospheric data has been captured, processed as well as archived since 1995 at DLR Neustrelitz. The captured data is being used for ionospheric research including modelling and characterization of ionospheric parameters and effects. This talk provides an overview of DLR’s ongoing ionospheric research activities also giving an introduction to related measurement facilities at DLR, like the high rate GPS receiver scintillation network, the ACE/DSCOVR reception antenna and the high-resolution ionospheric real-time detector setup for solar flares. Starting in 2004 DLR has developed the Space Weather Application Center Ionosphere (SWACI) in order to provide relevant space weather information, in particular now- and forecast of the ionospheric state to the public. I will also give an overview about the recent status of the IMPC and our application oriented research towards even more sophisticated methods for spatial and temporal high-resolution reconstruction, modeling and forecasts of the ionosphere.