Abstract

The relationship of magnetospheric interplanetary parameters with radio refractivity is investigated from hourly measurement of solar wind energy and interplanetary parameters for quiet and disturbed days during dry and rainy season in Minna (Latitude 9° 36' 50" N and Longitude 6° 33' 24" E) North central, Nigeria for the year 2008. The solar wind energy, magnetospheric interplanetary parameters and radio waves are characterized by large-scale interactions. These introduce both random and systematic variations in radio refractivity which virtually causes variations in radio propagation. Data used for this work is made up of hourly interval record of solar wind energy and interplanetary parameters calculated from data obtained from the Center for Basic Space Science (CBSS), University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The data was obtained using Vantage PRO II Automatic Weather station, and also through http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/ for each day in all the months of the year in 2008. The result showed that variations of solar wind energy, radio refractivity and interplanetary parameters with time are almost an hourly cycle each following almost the same trend line for both quiet and disturbed days during dry and rainy season. The result of the correlation analysis of solar wind energy and radio refractivity also showed that solar wind energy has square of  the correlation coefficients, R² = 0.176, R² = 0.040, R² = 0.319 and R² = 0.016 for both quiet and disturbed days during dry and rainy seasons which reviews weak correlation. Similarly, proton density (PD) and Dst Index, showed high correlation with square of the correlation coefficients, R²= 0.598 and R² = 0.5949, respectively for quiet day during dry season, and for disturbed day during dry season only PD showed high degree of correlation with square of the correlation coefficient, R² = 0.543. But during rainy season, the result indicated that there is no significant correlation existing between any of the interplanetary parameters with radio refractivity for both quiet and disturbed days.

Key words: Magnetospheric interplanetary parameters, radio refractivity.