Method for short-term forecasting of ionospheric tatal electron content in Chinese region

Ionospheric TEC is one of the main ionospheric characteristics, which has important influence on the radio systems such as the communication, the positioning, the radar and the navigation systems. In this paper, an algorithm for calculating continuous time series of ionospheric TEC over GPS station is given, and based on the calculation, a short-term forecasting method is proposed for the ionospheric TEC in China region. This method consists of two parts:the single station forecasting and the regional ionospheric reconstruction. The auto-correlation method is adopted in the single station forecasting, having capability to predict the ionospheric TEC from 15 minutes up to 24 hours in advance. The corrected Kriging method is used in the regional ionospheric reconstruction. Based on the measurement data from 33 stations in China and its surrounding area, the short-term forecasting of the ionospheric TEC has been realized, giving the estimate of the prediction errors.Possible ways are discussed for improving the accuracy of the prediction. The real-time data from low latitudes or boundry stations are significant for improving the ionospheric TEC forecasting in China region.