We assess the ionospheric scintillation occurrence on Global Navigation Satellite Signals (GNSSs) over the Mediterranean sector under the rising phase of the current solar cycle. To the scope, we leverage on a network of three Ionospheric Scintillation Monitor Receivers (ISMRs), being part of the electronic Space Weather upper atmosphere (eSWua: eswua.ingv.it) system (Pica et al., 2021). Such ISMRs are located in Lampedusa Island (Italy, Lat: 35.52 - Lon: 12.63), Chania (Crete, Greece, Lat: 35.52, Lon: 24.04) and Nicosia (Cyprus, Lat: 35.18 - Lon: 33.38). To our knowledge, this is the first thorough assessment of the scintillation patterns in the Southern Mediterranean sector, aimed at depicting how small-scale irregularities form in the area and potentially affect the GNSS-based positioning and related application and services. We analyse the period from January 2021 to December 2023, reporting that the bulk of the scintillation occurrence is due to small-scale irregularities forming in the southernmost area of the field of view of the network. Irregularities of such a scale are formed during the evolution of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability featuring the Equatorial Plasma Bubbles (EPB), which may spill-over in the field of view (FoV) of the receivers, i.e. at low elevation angles in the southernmost azimuthal range. As observations at low elevation angles are subject to multipath mimic weak to moderate scintillation conditions, we focus exclusively on severe amplitude scintillation occurrence ( S4  > 0.7) in the azimuthal range 110°-250°, w.r.t the FoV of the receivers, reaching then down to the Saharian ionosphere. To further confirm the nature of the detected GNSS scintillation occurrence, we compare the results with the Swarm Level-2 Ionospheric Bubble Index (IBI) evaluated within the same period. In the context of the April 2023 geomagnetic storm, a worst-case scenario is also documented, illustrating the potential impact of ionospheric disturbances associated with EPBs in the Southern Mediterranean area.

Science is undergoing very rapid changes due to the larger number of people having the opportunity to do science and also with the development of new and revolutionary techniques (e.g. machine learning). The new concepts discovered to end up not gaining the deserved prominence and are quickly discarded. We live in a world where great discoveries have already been made and small new ideas need to be cultivated and developed to rise to their deserved significance. An interesting image can be a start point to attract scientists to know more about some subject, but they are considered a time-consuming effort and difficult to be done. The worries with the creation of the images are not limited to beauty, but accurate drawing is fundamental to science. Illustrated scientific posters made by dedicated design are attractive but are often connected to companies and associated with the sale of a product. Although the idea presented in simple posters can lead to the imagination of new structures or relationships, one image of this idea could more easily explain the concept and attract people, encouraging a scientific debate. A list of commercial programs can be cited as Linkscape, Adobe packages (CorelDRAW, illustrator, etc.), Microsoft packages (Paint, PowerPoint, etc.) or even Matlab functions and this work will present images produced for a better understanding of ionospheric sciences. It is common knowledge that human memory is mostly visual. The digital images can not only be used in paper posters but also in digital posters, projections, websites, etc. The idea is to motivate ionospheric scientists to draw their discoveries. The images, and the scientific work itself, begin in a simple way and gain complexity with the advancement of the scientific discoveries and could be used for the author as a personal way to instigate a continuation of the study. Complex systems studies like the ionospheric sciences are often composed of multidisciplinary groups and are important to quickly explain the meaning of some concept. To investigate the perception of the scientist about the importance of images in explaining scientific concepts a questionnaire was done to collect information about the importance of scientific images in different fields of investigation.