Grims: Global and Regional Ionosphere Monitoring System

Abstract

The ionosphere shows regular changes such as daily, 27 days, seasonal, semi-annual, annual, and 11 years. These changes can be modeled and their effects largely determined. However, in addition to regular changes, irregular changes occur in the ionosphere due to space weather conditions, natural disasters, and human-induced irregularities. GNSS is one of the instruments along with many others that can give a piece of information on the ionospheric state. Various indices/parameters are used to determine the effect of space weather conditions. The well-known ones are solar activity indices, geomagnetic storm indices, magnetic field components, proton density, and proton flux parameters. It is important to take all of these indices into consideration when investigating the source of the anomaly. Considering only some of them may lead to incorrect inferences about the source of possible anomalies. To carry out comprehensive research in this field, it is necessary to analyze a very large data set. This indicates the requirement for an automatic system. With the Global and Regional Ionosphere Monitoring System (GRIMS) designed within the scope of this study, the ionosphere can be monitored globally and regionally. The GRIMS is online at https://www.online-grims.com/. By using Global ionospheric maps and GNSS receiver data, global, regional, and station-specific anomalies can be detected regularly through methods such as HDI (Highest Density Interval) and ARIMA (Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average). GRIMS gathers space weather-related parameters from ionospheric data centers to help users interpret the situation, and it allows users to download the results and request data for specific days. The details of the experimental results and output products of the system designed during the geomagnetic active days of March 17, 18, 2015 are given in this paper. Moreover, geomagnetic active days that occurred between 2000 and 2023 are given in the GRIMS.