Using ionosondes for global mapping of thermospheric meridional winds

Technical Report · Thu May 03 04:00:00 EDT 1990

OSTI ID:6036920

Miller, K L; Richards, P G; Torr, D G

This paper describes a recently developed method of deriving the meridional component of the horizontal neutral wind in the thermosphere. The method is based on the approximately linear relationship between the height of the ionospheric F2-layer peak and the strength of the meridional neutral wind. An ionospheric photochemical model is used to compute the parameters that describe this relationship. The neutral wind speed is derived from a measurement of the height of the F2-layer (h sub max). The measurement of h sub max can be made by incoherent scatter radar and ionogram inversion techniques, but is also derivable from parameters that are routinely scaled from ionograms and archived in world data centers. The wind speeds derived from h sub max are compared with winds from Fabry-Perot interferometry and incoherent scatter radar, and with results of the NCAR Thermospheric General Circulation Model.

• Research Organization: Utah State Univ., Logan, UT (United States). Center for Atmospheric and Space Sciences
• OSTI ID: 6036920
• Report Number(s): AD-P-006313/1/XAB
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

661320* -- Auroral
Ionospheric
& Magnetospheric Phenomena-- (1992-)
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
CALCULATION METHODS
DIMENSIONS
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
EQUIPMENT
F REGION
F2 LAYER
GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS
HEIGHT
INTERFEROMETRY
IONOSONDES
IONOSPHERE
MAPPING
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
PLANETARY IONOSPHERES
RADIO EQUIPMENT
THERMOSPHERE
WIND