Total electron content

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  • Total Electron Content
definition
  • Total electron content is the total vertically integrated number of electrons per unit surface area on the earth. In standard metric units this is 10E16 electrons/m^2 also known as a TEC unit or TECU. 
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Abstract from DBPedia
    Total electron content (TEC) is an important descriptive quantity for the ionosphere of the Earth. TEC is the total number of electrons integrated between two points, along a tube of one meter squared cross section, i.e., the electron columnar number density. It is often reported in multiples of the so-called TEC unit, defined as TECU=1016el/m2≈1.66×10−8 mol⋅m−2. TEC is significant in determining the scintillation and group and phase delays of a radio wave through a medium. Ionospheric TEC is characterized by observing carrier phase delays of received radio signals transmitted from satellites located above the ionosphere, often using Global Positioning System satellites. TEC is strongly affected by solar activity.

    (Source: http://dbpedia.org/resource/Total_electron_content)