ANGEO Annales Geophysicae ANGEO 1432-0576 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/angeo-22-405-2004 Latitudinal variations of TEC over Europe obtained from GPSobservations Wielgosz P. 1 3 Baran L. W. 1 Shagimuratov I. I. 2 Aleshnikova M. V. 2 Insitute of Geodesy, University of Warmia and Mazury, Olsztyn, Poland ZO IZMIRAN, Kaliningrad, Russia Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science, Ohio State University, USA 01 01 2004 22 2 405 415 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.ann-geophys.net/22/405/2004/angeo-22-405-2004.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.ann-geophys.net/22/405/2004/angeo-22-405-2004.pdf

GPS technique has opened broad possibilities to study the TEC distribution on a regular basis. In this paper, the latitudinal dependence of TEC over Europe for geographic latitudes ranging from 40°N to 75°N is presented. We discuss the day-to-day variations of the latitudinal TEC profiles for a period of 1999 to 2001 for both quiet and disturbed magnetic conditions. More than 4300 TEC profiles were created from the TEC maps with a one-hour interval. GPS data from 65 European permanent stations were used to produce the TEC maps. The comparison of GPS-derived TEC profiles with the IRI model is also discussed.<br><br> <b>Key words.</b> Ionosphere (mid-latitude ionosphere; ionospheric disturbances)