Modeling and analysis of COSMIC radio occultation (RO) scintillation events

The COSMIC satellite mission has provided continuous global GPS-to-LEO satellite observations that have advanced meteorological and ionospheric climatology. Whereas earth-based satellite beacon observations present angular scans, the RO links present nearly horizontal propagation paths within disturbed regions, which eliminates the ubiquitous phase screen model. Much of the complexity of RO geometries is suppressed by assuming radial variation of the primary structure. While this assumption evidently captures mean altitude dependence, ionospheric scintillation depends on the direction of the propagation path relative to the non-radial magnetic field. COSMIC ROs more often present uniform cross field propagation at high latitudes than at equatorial latitudes.