Sounding of sporadic E layers from China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES) radio occultation and comparing with ionosonde measurements

Abstract. GNSS radio occultation (RO) plays an important role in ionospheric electron density inversion and sounding of sporadic E layers. As China's first electromagnetic satellite, China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES) has collected the RO data from both GPS and BDS-2 satellites since March 2018. In this study, we extracted the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) data of CSES and calculated the standard deviation of normalized SNR. A new criterion is developed to determine the Es events, that is, when the mean value of the absolute value of the difference between the normalized SNR is greater than 3 times the standard deviation. The statistics show that sporadic E layers have strong seasonal variations with highest occurrence rates in summer season at middle latitudes. It is also found that the occurrence height of Es is mainly located at 90–110 km, and the period 14:00–20:00 LT is the high incidence period of Es. In addition, the geometric altitudes of a sporadic E layer detected in CSES radio occultation profiles and the virtual heights of a sporadic E layer obtained by the Wuhan Zuoling station (ZLT) ionosonde show three different space-time matching criteria. Our results reveal that there is a good agreement between both parameters which is reflected in the significant correlation.