Intercalibration of the plasma density measurements in Earth's topside ionosphere

To utilize all of the collected observations for empirical modeling, it is necessary to ensure that they do not exhibit systematic differences and are adjusted to the same reference frame. In this study, we compare satellite plasma density observations from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC), CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload (CHAMP), Swarm, and Communications/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) missions.

Electron densities retrieved from GRACE K-Band Ranging (KBR) system, previously shown to be in excellent agreement with incoherent scatter radar (ISR) measurements, are used as a reference. We find that COSMIC radio occultation (RO) densities are highly consistent with GRACE-KBR observations showing a mean relative difference of <2%, and therefore no calibration factors between them are necessary. We utilize the outstanding three-dimensional coverage of the topside ionosphere by the COSMIC mission to perform conjunction analysis with in situ density observations from CHAMP, C/NOFS, and Swarm missions.