Abstract As the 25th solar cycle enters a highly active phase, the resulting ionospheric irregularities induce disturbances in signals of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), significantly disrupting its global stable positioning, navigation, and timing services. Introducing widely distributed geodetic receivers into ionospheric scintillation research is key to achieving global wide‐area monitoring. Most of existing scintillation indices primarily focus on the temporal variation characteristics of GNSS ionospheric scintillation, while the Disturbed Ionosphere Index Spatial Gradient (DIXSG) takes into account both the temporal and spatial variations of ionospheric scintillation. However, its reliability for monitoring global and regional ionospheric disturbances during the new solar cycle still lacks effective validation. Therefore, this paper aims to verify the performance of DIXSG utilizing data from the network of GNSS geodetic receivers collected during a severe geomagnetic storm in the 25th solar cycle. With the ROTI map as a reference, this paper will assess the monitoring performance of DIXSG on characterizing the global and regional ionospheric disturbances. Finally, this paper will propose empirical sensitivity parameters recommendations tailored to various geographical areas. The results indicate that DIXSG can effectively characterize the extent of ionospheric disturbances when using it on a global scale. By appropriately adjusting its empirical sensitivity parameters, DIXSG is also applicable to high‐latitude and mid‐latitude regions. However, since DIXSG encompasses both temporal and spatial electron density gradient information, it may give overestimated values in low‐latitude regions, where the background electron density and the electron density gradients are of significant.
Zhao et al. (Wed,) studied this question.