Assimilation of FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC electron density profiles into a coupled thermosphere/ionosphere model using ensemble Kalman filtering

Assimilation analyses obtained with real F3/C electron density profiles are compared with independent ground-based observations as well as the F3/C profiles themselves. The comparison shows the improvement of the primary ionospheric parameters, such as NmF2 and hmF2. Nevertheless, some unrealistic signatures appearing in the results and high rejection rates of observations due to the applied outlier threshold and quality control are found in the assimilation experiments.

This paper further discusses the limitations of the model and the impact of ensemble member creation approaches on the assimilation results, and proposes possible methods to avoid these problems for future work.