Using Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory Method for the Height of F2 Peak Forecasting from Ionosonde Measurements in the Australian Region

The height of F2 peak (hmF2) is an essential ionospheric parameter and its variations can reflect both the earth magnetic and solar activities. Therefore, reliable prediction of hmF2 is important for the study of space, such as solar wind and extreme weather events. However, most current models are unable to forecast the variation of the ionosphere effectively since real-time measurements are required as model inputs. In this study, a new Australian regional hmF2 forecast model was developed by using ionosonde measurements and the bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (bi-LSTM) method. The hmF2 value in the next hour can be predicted using the data from the past five hours at the same location. The inputs chosen from a location of interest include month of the year, local time (LT), Kp, F10.7 and hmF2 as an independent variable vector. The independent variable vectors in the immediate past five hours are considered as an independent variable set, which is used as an input of the new Australian regional hmF2 forecast model developed for the prediction of hmF2 in the hour to come. The performance of the new model developed is evaluated by comparing with those from other popular models, such as the AMTB, Shubin, ANN and LSTM models. Results showed that: (1) the new model can substantially outperform all the other four models. (2) Compared to the LSTM model, the new model is proven to be more robust and rapidly convergent. The mew model also outperforms that of the ANN model by around 30%. (3) the minimum sample number for the bi-LSTM method (i.e., 2000) to converge is about 50% less than that is required for the LSTM method (i.e., 3000). (4) Compared to the Shubin model, the bi-LSTM method can effectively forecast the hmF2 values up to 5 h. This research is a first attempt at using the deep learning-based method for the application of the ionospheric prediction.