Towards estimation of atmospheric tidal effects on the ionosphere via data assimilation

The impact of atmospheric tides on the night time ionosphere is now being a subject of the extensive research within the scientific community. The plausible effect has been observed using the multiple space-borne instruments (e.g. COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 constellation, TIMED GUVI and NASA IMAGE). Along with the observations, several modelling attempts has been undertaken to prove or refute the interrelation between the atmospheric tides and the wave-four longitudinal night time ionosphere structure. The scope of the current article is to assess the data assimilation ionosphere model capabilities in representing the longitudinal effect in the night time ionosphere induced by the DE3 atmospheric tide. Along with this, the core physics-based model capabilities in estimating the same effect are presented and discussed. For the current research, two periods were taken into consideration: the autumn equinox of the years 2006 and 2012. In the current article the data assimilation and physics-based models calculation results are presented and discussed along with the models' error estimation and analysis.