Version 2.0 - pyFIRI — A free and open source Python software package of the non-auroral Earth’s lower ionosphere

Abstract

This paper presents the extrapolated version of FIRI-2018, a mature empirical model of the Earth’s ionosphere D-region (∼60–90 km). The original FIRI-2018 model was developed by Dr. Martin Friedrich, Dr. Klaus Torkar, and Christoph Pock and provided electron density reference profiles for the Northern hemisphere and a regular 365-days year. Our extrapolated version allows electron density calculations for a leap year (days of a year – DOY – in the range [1..366]) and for both Northern and Southern hemispheres (latitude in the range [−60..60], degrees).

Keywords

• FIRI model
• D-region
• Earth’s lower ionosphere
• Python