I'm not sure I understand your question. STEC can be used as direct input in other applications such as tomography. STEC can be taken over any propagation path.. It may even be the TEC between two satellites (limb sounding) and therefore to give STEC measurements context, they are usually converted to VTEC using a mapping function. This assumes that all the free electrons are concentrated at a thin layer of infinitesimal thickness located at a particular altitude called the ionospheric pierce point (IPP). This allows the VTEC to be plotted as a function of latitude, longitude and time and compared to other instruments measuring TEC, integrating the measurements into adaptive models, climatology studies of VTEC, or as a proxy for estimating things like propagation delays and Faraday rotation in other satellite systems.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Psychometrics
- Measurement