The cooperative IGS RT-GIMs: a reliable estimation of the global ionospheric electron content distribution in real time

Abstract. The Real-Time Working Group (RTWG) of the International GNSS Service (IGS) is dedicated to providing high-quality data and high-accuracy products for Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning, navigation, timing Earth observations. As one part real-time products, IGS combined Ionosphere Map (RT-GIM) has been generated by weighting RT-GIMs from ionosphere centers including Chinese Academy Sciences (CAS), Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) Wuhan University (WHU). performance global vertical total electron content (VTEC) representation in all assessed VTEC Jason-3 altimeter 3 months over oceans dSTEC-GPS technique with 2 d observations continental regions. According assessment, sensitive accuracy RT-GIMs. Compared post-processed rapid maps (GIMs) final GIM (igsg) during testing period, UPC RT-GIM (after improvement interpolation technique) (IRTG) equivalent GIMs reaches around 2.7 3.0 TECU (TEC unit, 1016 el m−2) regions, respectively. CAS CNES slightly worse than GIMs, while WHU requires a further upgrade obtain similar performance. In addition, strong response recent geomagnetic storms found (GEC) (especially RT-GIM). turn out be reliable sources information have great potential applications range error correction transionospheric radio signals, monitoring space weather, detection natural hazards on scale. All analyzed period are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5042622 (Liu et al., 2021b).