We find a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) effect in the F2 critical frequency (foF2) series for Okinawa. Across 29 SSW events, the amplitude of the semidiurnal cycle of foF2 peaks at the SSW onset in the SSW years. In these years, we find, for the first time, a lunar terdiurnal component with a relative amplitude of about 5 %, and lunar diurnal and semidiurnal components have relative amplitudes of about 10 %. The periods of lunar ionospheric tidal variations align with those of ocean tides.

Local occurrence rate (LOR) is defined to clarify the characteristics of ionospheric irregularities together with monthly occurrence rate (MOR) at 20–29° N in solar minimum, medium and maximum years of 2008, 2003 and 2014. MOR of irregularities in May/June is larger than that in equinoxes, which is different with the equatorial plasma bubbles. LOR shows that the irregularities at 26–29° N in May/June are more frequently happened and have smaller spatiotemporal scales than those at lower latitudes.

The GPS radio occultation data of the COSMIC-FORMOSAT-3 mission are used to visualize the global distribution of ionospheric irregularities in the F2 region during a geomagnetic storm, at solar minimum, and at solar maximum.