Comparison of observed hmF2 and IRI 2007 model with M(3000)F2 estimation of hmF2 at low solar activity for an equatorial station

Abstract This is to investigate ways of improving the Equatorial F 2-layer peak heights estimated from M (3000) F 2 ionosonde data measured using the Ionospheric Prediction Service (IPS-42) sounder at Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (Latitude +12.4°N, Longitude +1.5°W, Dip latitude +5.9°N) during a low solar activity year (1995). For this purpose, we have compared the observed h m F 2 ( h m F 2 obs ) deduced using an algorithm from scaled virtual heights of quiet day ionograms and the predicted h m F 2 values which is given by the IRI 2007 model ( h m F 2 IRI 2007 ) with the ionosonde measured M (3000) F 2 estimation of the h m F 2 values ( h m F 2 est ) respectively. The correlation coefficients R 2 for all the seasons were found to range from 0.259 to 0.692 for h m F 2 obs values, while it ranges from 0.551 to 0.875 for the h m F 2 IRI 2007 values. During the nighttime, estimated h m F 2 ( h m F 2 est ) was found to be positively correlated with the h m F 2 obs values by the post-sunset peak representation which is also represented by the h m F 2 IRI 2007 values. We also investigated the validity of the h m F 2 est values by finding the percentage deviations when compared with the h m F 2 obs and h m F 2 IRI 2007 .