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Candido Claudia

Institute:
INPE.
Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil

SOUTHERN ANOMALY CREST SPREAD-F IN JUNE SOLSTICE DURING THE SOLAR CYCLE 23

Authors: Candido, Claudia M. N.1, Batista, I. S.1, Becker-Guedes, F.1; Abdu, M. A.1, Sobral, J. H. A.1, Takahashi, H.1 1. National Institute for Space Research - INPE
Poster presentation

At Brazilian low latitudes, the spread-F as seen by ionosondes or imaging systems is mostly associated with equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs), mainly between October and March. On the other hand, during low solar activity and the June solstice periods, the observation of EPBs at low latitude sites is very rare, presenting an occurrence about 11%. In this work we present a study of a series of spread-F events observed over the Southern anomaly crest (Cachoeira Paulista 22.7oS, 45.0 o W, mag lat: 16 o S, dip angle: -22.3o, Brazil) during last solar cycle, which presented an extended solar minimum period. After analyzing hundreds of ionograms obtained with a digital ionosonde DGS 256, between 2001 and 2010, we verified a high occurrence of Midnight-Post Midnight spread-F at June Solstice (South Winter) with a peak between 2006 and 2009, when the solar flux has reached very low values (< 70 SFU). The spread-F frequently present high intensities, despite the low plasma densities of the period (foF2 < 6 MHz) and can extends for several hours. We have found evidences that spread-F events can be caused by ionospheric disturbances as medium scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs) come from higher latitudes. Finally we present a statistical analysis of the events.
spread-F, solar minimum, low latitudes

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