Vincenzo Romano

National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology | INGV · Environment

This paper presents a review on the PECASUS service, which provides advisories on enhanced space weather activity for civil aviation. The advisories are tailored according to the Standards and Recommended Practices of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Advisories are disseminated in three impact areas: radiation levels at flight...

We aim at contributing to the reliability of the phase scintillation index on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals at high-latitude. To the scope, we leverage on a recently introduced detrending scheme based on the signal decomposition provided by the fast iterative filtering (FIF) technique. This detrending scheme has been demonstrate...

We contribute to the debate on the identification of phase scintillation induced by the ionosphere on the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) by introducing a phase detrending method able to provide realistic values of the phase scintillation index at high latitude. It is based on the fast iterative filtering signal decomposition technique, w...

We introduce a novel empirical model to forecast, 24 hours in advance, the Total Electron Content (TEC) at global scale. The technique leverages on the Global Ionospheric Map (GIM), provided by the International GNSS Service (IGS), and applies a nonlinear autoregressive neural network with external input (NARX) to selected GIM grid points for the 2...

The paper presents an unprecedented description of the climatology of ionospheric irregularities over the Arctic derived from the longest Global Navigation Satellite Systems data series ever collected for this specific aim. Two TEC and scintillation receivers are working at Ny-Ålesund (Svalbard, NO), the first of which has been installed in late Se...

We analyze the amplitude scintillation on L-band signals over San Miguel de Tucumán (Argentina), focusing on the multi-scale variability and speculating on the possible relationship between forcing factors from the geospace and the ionospheric response. The site is nominally located below the expected position of the southern crest of the Equatoria...

We introduce a new information and communication technology (ICT) cloud-based architecture for Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) high-accuracy solutions, offering also a commercial overview of GNSS downstream market to show how the developed innovation is thought to fit in the real context. The designed architecture is featured by dynamic s...

The effect of the Earth’s ionosphere represents the single largest contribution to the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) error budget and abnormal ionospheric conditions can impose serious degradation on GNSS system functionality, including integrity, accuracy and availability. With the growing reliance on GNSS for many modern life applicat...

We describe a novel empirical technique for the regional, short-term (from seconds to minutes) forecasting of both TEC (total electron content) and scintillation indices on Global Navigation Satellite System signals. To provide TEC-forecasted values, the method exploits the continuity equation in the conservative form, while the continuity equation...

Environment observations provide a unique source of consistent information about the natural environment and they provide resource managers the information to assess the current state of the environment, weight the requirements of different uses by multiple stakeholders, and manage the natural resources and ecosystems in a sustainable manner. Most...

Polar sciences represent a unique opportunity for scientific dissemination, not only for importance, multidisciplinary values and relapse of the polar researches, but, mainly, because it addresses and transmits ethical and social values as example of strong integration between human beings and extreme environments. In this frame, the idea to commun...

The opportunity to extend monitoring campaigns in Antarctica, overcoming the limitations of the current fixed installations and getting data directly on-field, becomes increasingly attractive for researchers and scientists. The GreenLab is an energy-efficient and self-sufficient system specifically conceived for critical environments. It is equippe...

The aim of the Ionosphere Prediction Service (IPS) project is to design and develop a prototype platform to translate the prediction and forecast of the ionosphere effects into a service customized for specific GNSS user communities. The project team is composed by Telespazio (coordinator), Nottingham Scientific Ltd, Telespazio Vega Deutschland, th...

Radio power scintillation, namely highly irregular fluctuations of the power of trans-ionospheric GNSS signals, is the effect of ionospheric plasma turbulence. The scintillation patterns on radio signals crossing the medium inherit the ionospheric turbulence characteristics of inter-scale coupling, local randomness and large time variability. On th...

The brokering approach can be successfully used to overcome the crucial question of searching among enormous amount of data (raw and/or processed) produced and stored in different information systems. In this paper, authors describe the Data Management System the DMS (Data Management System) developed by INGV (Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulc...

The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) leads an international project funded by the Italian National Program for Antarctic Research (PNRA), called DemoGRAPE, in partnership with Politecnico di Torino, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, and with SANSA (South African National Space Agency) and INPE (the Brazilian National Institute o...

INGV is operating a network of GNSS (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo) receivers, especially modified to monitor the perturbations of the high latitudes upper atmosphere. In particular, the first GPS receiver was installed in 2003 at Ny-Ålesund (Svalbard Island, 78°55′30″N 11°55′20″E). The combined analysis of the scintillations parameters (S4 and Sigma_phi)...

The increasing importance of satellite navigation technologies in modern society implies that a deeper knowledge and a reliable monitoring of the scintillation phenomena are essential to warn and forecast information to the end users and system designers. In fact, warnings, alerts and forecasting of ionospheric conditions may wisely tune the develo...

This work presents a contribution to the understanding of the ionospheric triggering of L-band scintillation in the region over Sao Paulo state in Brazil, under high solar activity. In particular, a climatological analysis of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) data acquired in 2012 is presented to highlight the relationship between intensit...

IDIPOS, that stands for Italian Database Infrastructure for Polar Observation Sciences, has been conceived to realize a feasibility study on infrastructure devoted to management of data coming from Polar areas. This framework adopted a modular approach identifying two main parts: the first one defines main components of infrastructure, and, the lat...

During the ascending phase of solar cycle 24, a series of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) in the period 7–17 March 2012 caused geomagnetic storms that strongly affected high-latitude ionosphere in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. GPS phase scintillation was observed at northern and southern high latitudes by arrays of GPS ionosph...

Data management for E-science applications need to adopt new platforms/services aiming at improving the interactions between users and data, through sharing, flexibility and resources availability. In the space weather domain, the DemoGRAPE project, under the GRAPE initiative (www.grape.scar.org), focuses on merging E-science and ICT to push forwar...

Observations of ionospheric scintillation in polar region are presented in this paper. Some ionospheric scintillation characteristics were obtained when the sun activity was at low level using the data of Sodankyla and Tromso from March 2004 to September 2008.As the sun activity decreases, the scintillation occurrence reduces evidently. Due to the...

The South American ionosphere is characterized by the presence of the Equatorial Ionospheric Anomaly (EIA), which results into two crests of enhanced electron density located at ±15° off the magnetic equator. Such characterization implies a complex configuration and dynamics of the local ionospheric plasma, especially during solar maximum condition...

In this paper we study a tongue of ionization (TOI) on 31 October 2011 which stretched across the polar cap from the Canadian dayside sector to Svalbard in the nightside ionosphere. The TOI front arrived over Svalbard around 1930 UT. We have investigated GPS scintillation and irregularities in relation to this TOI front. This is the first study pre...

In the frame of the projects “BIS - BIPOLAR IONOSPHERIC SCINTILLATION AND TEC MONITORING”, PNRA 2009/B.03 and ISACCO (Ionospheric Scintillations Arctic Campaign Coordinated Observations), a network of GNSS stations have been installed since 2003 in both polar regions. All the stations are equipped with a dual-frequency GNSS receiver in order to mea...

In this case study we present findings of Global Positioning System (GPS) scintillation in relation to the arriving front of a tongue of ionization in the nightside polar cap over Svalbard. We find almost no amplitude and some phase scintillation in relation to the leading density gradient, which is interpreted as “false” refractive scintillation d...

Accurate ionospheric specification is necessary for improving human activities such as radar detection, navigation, and Earth observation. This is of particular importance in Africa, where strong plasma density gradients exist due to the equatorial ionization anomaly. In this paper the accuracy of three-dimensional ionospheric images is assessed ov...

For this study, GPS receiver scintillation and Total Electron Content (TEC) data from high-latitude locations on Svalbard have been combined with several other data sets, including the EISCAT Svalbard Radar (ESR) and allsky cameras, to perform a multi-instrument case study of high-latitude GPS ionospheric scintillations in relation to drifting plas...

We study ionospheric scintillation on GNSS signals at equatorial latitudes to draw a climatological picture of the low latitude ionosphere in the Brazilian sector during the ascending phase of the upcoming 2013 solar maximum. Such data have been acquired during the early stage of the CIGALA project (http://cigala.galileoic.org/), funded by the Euro...

Ionospheric scintillations are fluctuations in the phase and amplitude of the signals from GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) occurring when they cross regions of electron density irregularities in the ionosphere. Such disturbances can cause serious degradation of several aspects of GNSS system performance, including integrity, accuracy and...

The ionosphere is the single largest contributor to the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) error budget and ionospheric scintillation (IS) in particular is one of its most harmful effects. The Ground Based Scintillation Climatology (GBSC) has been recently developed by INGV as a software tool to identify the main areas of the ionosphere in w...

We analyze data recorded from October 2010 to September 2011, during the ascending phase of the 24th solar cycle, from an Advanced Ionospheric Sounder-Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia ionosonde and a GPS Ionospheric Scintillation and total electron content (TEC) monitor scintillation receiver, colocated at low latitude in the Southern...

In recent years, several groups have installed high-frequency sampling receivers in the southern middle and high latitude regions, to monitor ionospheric scintillations and the total electron content (TEC) changes. Taking advantage of the archive of continuous and systematic observa-tions of the ionosphere on L-band by means of signals from the Glo...

The global positioning system (GPS) phase scintillation caused by high-latitude ionospheric irregularities during an intense high-speed stream (HSS) of the solar wind from April 29 to May 5, 2011, was observed using arrays of GPS ionospheric scintillation and total electron content monitors in the Arctic and Antarctica. The one-minute phase-scintil...

The Italian National Antarctic Programme (PNRA) has long supported scientific and technological activities addressed to the implementation, upgrade and maintenance of infrastructure and instruments supporting geosciences and physical sciences in the polar region. This report describes the first results of the Italian Database Infrastructure for Pol...

The electronic space weather upper atmosphere (eSWua) is a hardware- software system that is based on measurements collected by instruments installed by the Upper Atmosphere Physics Group of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV, Italy). More recently, it has also included the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) ionospheric...

Scintillations are rapid amplitude and phase fluctuations of electromagnetic signals. GNSS-based systems may be disturbed by plasma irregularities and structures such as plasma patches (areas of enhanced electron density) and plasma gradients in the ionosphere. When the GNSS radio signals propagate through such areas, in particular gradients, the s...

In the framework of the project BIS -Bipolar Ionospheric Scintillation and Total Electron Content Monitoring, the ISACCO-DMC0 and ISACCO-DMC1 permanent monitoring stations were installed in 2008. The principal scope of the stations is to measure the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) and to monitor the ionospheric scintillations, using high-s...

This paper presents research on polar cap ionosphere space weather phenomena conducted during the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) action ES0803 from 2008 to 2012. The main part of the work has been directed toward the study of plasma instabilities and scintillations in association with cusp flow channels and polar cap electron...

Scintillations are rapid fluctuations in the phase and amplitude of transionospheric radio signals which are caused by small-scale plasma density irregularities in the ionosphere. In the case of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers, scintillation can cause cycle slips, degrade the positioning accuracy and, when severe enough, can...

Transionospheric radio signals may experience fluctuations in their amplitude and phase due to irregularity in the spatial electron density distribution, referred to as scintillation. Ionospheric scintillation is responsible for transionospheric signal degradation that can affect the performance of satellite based navigation systems. Usually, the s...

High-rate sampling data of Global Navigation Satellite Systems ionospheric scintillation acquired by a network of GPS Ionospheric Scintillation and TEC Monitor receivers located in the Svalbard Islands, in Norway and in Antarctica have been analyzed. The aim is to describe the "scintillation climatology" of the high-latitude ionosphere over both th...

We use observations of ionospheric scintillation at equatorial latitudes from two GPS receivers specially modified for recording, at a sampling rate of 50 Hz, the phase and the amplitude of the L1 signal and the Total Electron Content (TEC) from L1 and L2. The receivers, called GISTM (GPS Ionospheric Scintillation and TEC Monitor), are located in V...