Abstract Ionospheric scintillation in the Equatorial Ionization Anomaly (EIA) region significantly impacts the performance of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). While scintillation characteristics have been widely studied globally, the evolution of scintillation events remains underexplored. Furthermore, current scintillation studies primarily rely on the 60‐s index, overlooking shorter events and potentially obscuring subtle details in the variation patterns. This study investigates amplitude scintillation variations in the EIA crest regions during the 2014 solar maximum. A high resolution scintillation index estimated in a shorter interval of 10 s is applied to represent the detailed scintillation variations more accurately. Three new scintillation characteristic parameters, that is, the time for to reach its peak, the proportion of rise time, and the rise slope are introduced to reveal scintillation event evolution process. Based on the scintillation data collected in the Brazilian and Hong Kong regions from 1 October to 31 December 2014, the variation characteristics of scintillation events in the EIA crest regions are analyzed. Results show that the rise time to peak is independent of scintillation intensity, elevation and azimuth in both regions, with events having the proportion of rise time less than 0.5 more likely. As the elevation increases, a higher proportion of scintillation events exhibit smaller rise slopes, indicating that scintillation intensity tends to vary more slowly under higher elevation. This study allows us a better understanding of the occurrence and evolution mechanisms of ionospheric scintillation in the equatorial region.
Wang et al. (Fri,) studied this question.