Temporal characteristics of triple-frequency GNSS scintillation during a visible aurora borealis event over the Faroe Islands amid a period of very low solar activity

Ionospheric scintillation causes noise in GNSS measurements and hence affects the resulting coordinates or even the ability to track data. We investigate the characteristics of GNSS scintillation during a visible aurora borealis event over the Faroe Islands during October 7, 2018, which lasted for around 30 min. Data of 1 Hz rate from a typical geodetic GNSS receiver are analyzed during a 3-h window around the event, as well as during the same period the days before and after. Data from all four GNSS are analyzed, which consist of 31 satellites during the occurrence, resulting in a good overview of the temporal distribution of the scintillation. Two approaches are used, called the time difference code-minus-carrier and the time difference phase ionospheric residual. The results illustrate that there is little effect on the code measurements, but significant repercussion on the carrier phase observables, resulting in erroneous position solutions. The approaches we present can be used in GNSS processing software to detect scintillation noise in real time on individual satellites, allowing such noisy data to be rejected.