Modeling of ionospheric scintillation

Abstract

A signal, such as from a GNSS satellite or microwave sounding system, propagating in the randomly inhomogeneous ionosphere, experiences chaotic modulations of its amplitude and phase. This effect is known as scintillation. This article reviews basic theoretical concepts and simulation strategies for modeling the scintillation phenomenon. We focused our attention primarily on the methods connected with the random phase screen model. For a weak scattering regime on random ionospheric irregularities, a single-phase screen model enables us to obtain the analytic expression for phase and intensity scintillation indices, as well as the statistical quantities characterizing the strength of scintillation-related fades and distortions. In the case of multiple scattering, the simulation with multiple phase screens becomes a handy tool for obtaining these indices. For both scattering regimes, the statistical properties of the ionospheric random medium play an important role in scintillation modeling and are discussed with an emphasis on related geometric aspects. As an illustration, the phase screen simulation approaches used in the global climatological scintillation model GISM are briefly discussed.