Publisher's Synopsis
The purpose of this research was to validate the Ionospheric Forecast Model (IFM) Version 3 to assess its suitability and usefulness as an operational tool. The Ionospheric forecast model is a first principles computer model designed to forecast the state of the global ionosphere to 24 hours. The scope was limited to a comparison of the F2 layer critical frequency (foF2) and peak electron density (hmF2) against observed ionosonde data. The model was run with global solar and geomagnetic indices and Information from Digitial Ionospheric Sounding System (DISS) observations as inputs. The DISS observations were input through the Parameterized Real-Time Ionospheric Specification Model (PRISM). The IFM was run for a total of 25 days. It was run twice for each 24- hour period: once by starting with only an initial specification of the ionosphere from an empirical model, and again, with an initial specification from the PRISM model with DISS data as an input.
