The effect of space weather on the ionosphere at the 15° meridian during CAWSES-II

Space weather determines the ionospheric state, knowledge of which is especially important during disturbances. To study this state, the period March 7-17, 2012, recommended by SCOSTEP for detailed studies and called CAWSES-II, was selected. This period has a number of features of the behavior of the solar wind parameters SW and the interplanetary magnetic field IMF. In this paper, we study their relationship with the total electron content TEC and the critical frequency foF2 of the ionosphere at the meridian of 15°, near which several ionosondes are located. The correlation coefficients of TEC and foF2 with the SW and IMF parameters for the month and the selected period are determined. For foF2, the difference between the correlation coefficients for the month and March 7-17 is less than for TEC. The possibility of using TEC to determine foF2 was shown, since the response of foF2 to disturbances was very close to the response of TEC and the variations of TEC and foF2 have been occurring synchronously.