The Ionosphere during a Total Solar Eclipse
Photo copyright 1998 by Andreas Gada and Jerry LodrigussOn 1 August 2008, there was a total solar eclipse visible in the very northernmost regions of the Earth. See
NASA Eclipse Website Although the path of totality was in very northern areas, previous research has found that the Earth's ionosphere responds to eclipses in both hemispheres, on both the day and night side of the Earth! So SID space weather monitors in many places of the world should have been able to detect this eclipse.
We hosted a SID campaign for 1 August and have been collecting data for the eclipse day. One of our solar researchers, Bala Poduval, is currently analyzing that data. We will announce the results as soon as they are available.
To read more about how solar eclipses affect Earth's ionosphere, see:
- The ionospheric responses to the 11 August 1999 solar eclipse: observations and modeling
- Ionospheric phenomenons created by the Solar Eclipse of 11 August 1999 from Canada to Indies
- Measurements of the topside ionosphere over Arecibo during the total solar eclipse of February 26, 1998
- Ionospheric effects of the March 29, 2006, solar eclipse over Kazakhstan [purchase]
- GPS ionospheric TEC measurement during the 23rd November 2003 total solar eclipse at Scott Base Antarctica [purchase]
Arrange to send your SID data to Stanford
The SID monitor software is set up to be able to ftp your data to the centralized data center at Stanford. Detailed instructions can be found here and on page 39 of your SID Manual.If you have an older SID distribution (which may not supply all the needed scripts), you can easily upgrade to the most recent version, which consists of only 3 files. It may take a while to download these files, but the installation is quick and easy. Go to:
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/SID/Distribution/current/ View data at Stanford
Go to http://sid.stanford.edu/database-browser/The data are easiest to read if you
You can view the data by going to the site, clicking on the "View Data by Date" option. Then click on the 1 Aug 2008 date. To separate the graphs for easier viewing, following the procedures above.
- Click the "Vertical" buttom
- Set the Graph Size to "Small"
- Then click on "Update Graph"
Predictions for the shape of the solar corona during the eclipse, based on SOHO/MDI data, were available at:
Stanford-Keiji Hayashi
SAIC - Jon Linker