Modelling the diurnal variation of ionosphere in longitude and latitude over the equatorial region

Ionosphere is the atmospheric layer that contains free electrons which is termed as electron density (Ne). In this project, the Ne was modelled for a region of latitude from 0 to 50° and longitude from 100 to 120°. The Ne was obtained from International Reference Ionosphere (IRI). IRI is the international standard for the climatological specification of ionospheric parameters. The Ne was obtained at 350km. This altitude was chosen because at this altitude, content of Ne is maximum over the equatorial region. Then the Ne was taken at four different local time; 8.00am, 1.30pm, 6.30pm and 11.30pm from 1^st June 2009 to 7^th June 2009. This Ne then modelled in 2 dimensions (latitude and longitude) using Table Curve 3D (TC3D). TC3D is software that can generate a mathematical equation for given latitude, longitude and Ne. Then, the Ne from IRI will be compared with TC3D and from MATLAB. However, due the variation in the solar activity, it is very hard to obtain the same mathematical model for the ionospheric formation at different time of a day and at different days.