The planetary ionospheric storm index, W_p, is deduced from the numerical global ionospheric GPS-IONEX maps of the vertical total electron content, TEC, for more than half a solar cycle, 1999–2008. The TEC values are extracted from the 600 grid points of the map at latitudes 60° N to 60° S with a step of 5° and longitudes 0° to 345° E with a step of 15° providing the data for 00:00 to 23:00 h of local time. The local effects of the solar radiant energy are filtered out by normalizing of the TEC in terms of the solar zenith angle χ at a particular time and the local noon value χ₀. The degree of perturbation, DTEC, is computed as log of TEC relative to quiet reference median for 27 days prior to the day of observation. The W-index map is generated by segmentation of DTEC with the relevant thresholds specified earlier for foF2 so that 1 or −1 stands for the quiet state, 2 or −2 for the moderate disturbance, 3 or −3 for the moderate ionospheric storm, and 4 or −4 for intense ionospheric storm at each grid point of the map. The planetary ionospheric storm W_p index is obtained from the W-index map as a latitudinal average of the distance between maximum positive and minimum negative W-index weighted by the latitude/longitude extent of the extreme values on the map. The threshold W_p exceeding 4.0 index units and the peak value W_pmax≥6.0 specify the duration and the power of the planetary ionosphere-plasmasphere storm. It is shown that the occurrence of the W_p storms is growing with the phase of the solar cycle being twice as much as the number of the magnetospheric storms with D_st≤−100 nT and A_p≥100 nT.

The ionospheric slab thickness τ defined as a ratio of the total electron content (TEC) to the F-region peak electron density (NmF2) has been analysed during the solar maximum (1981) and minimum (1985) phases of an intense, the 21st, solar cycle. Hourly values of TEC and NmF2 collected at Hawaii (low-latitude), Boulder (mid-latitude) and Goosebay (high-latitude) are used in the study. Climatology of the slab thickness is described by the diurnal, seasonal, solar and magnetic activity variations of τ for the different latitude zones. It is found that, for magnetically quiet days of solar maximum, increased ionization of NmF2 and TEC during the daytime is accompanied by an increased thickness of the ionosphere compared to the night-time for non-auroral latitudes. However, the reverse is found to be true during the solar minimum compensating TEC against a weak night-time ionization of NmF2. For the high-latitude the night-time slab thickness is higher compared to the daytime for both the solar phases. Ratios of daily peak to minimum values of slab thickness vary from 1.3 to 3.75 with the peaks of τ often observed at pre-sunrise and post-sunset hours. The average night-to-day ratios of τ vary from 0.68 to 2.23. The day-to-day variability of τ, expressed in percentage standard deviation, varies from 10% by day (equinox, high-latitude) to 67% by night (summer, mid-latitude) during solar minimum and from 10% by day (winter and equinox, mid-latitude) to 56% by night (equinox, high-latitude) during solar maximum. A comprehensive review of slab thickness related literature is given in the paper. Key words. Ionospheric physics