Abstract: Based on the observations of Digisonde Portable Sounder-4 (DPS-4) and GPS receiver in 2013 at Zhongshan Station, Antarctica, a comparative study on the daily and seasonal variation characteristics of ionospheric total electron content (TEC) with solar flux and geomagnetic activity is carried out. The result shows that the average TEC values have positive correlation with solar flux, whereas it’s negative correlation with geomagnetic activity. Although a dawn/dusk asymmetry of average TEC variations can be easily observed, the average TEC variations between DPS and GPS are trend to be largely agreement and similar, and the linear correlation coefficient is generally 0.86. Factors controlling the agreement are briefly analyzed, including GPS elevation angle, topside contribution to DPS TEC, and the variations of plasma convection and neutral atmospheric composition.

Key words: ionospheric total electron content, critical frequency, polar convection