Using B-Spline Expansions for Ionosphere Modeling

The knowledge of the electron density is the key point in correcting electromagnetic measurements for ionospheric disturbances. In the last 15 years, the space-geodetic observation techniques such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) or radar altimetry have become a promising tool for monitoring the electron distribution in the ionosphere.This chapter gives a detailed overview of the mathematical modeling of ionospheric parameters such as the electron density by means of B-spline expansions. B-splines – which are locally supported basis functions – allow for optimal handling of unevenly distributed observations and data gaps. By combining the one-dimensional basis functions by means of tensor products, multidimensional models can be constructed easily. The unknown model coefficients are estimated based on observations from a number of space-geodetic techniques. In addition to the mathematical model and the basis functions used, the estimation process including variance component estimation (VCE) and multi-scale representation (MSR) is introduced. The feasibility of the approach is shown for one example modeling the vertical total electron content (VTEC) for 24 h in South America.