VARIATIONS OF PLASMA TEMPERATURES IN IONOSPHERE OVER KHARKIV DURING EXTREME SOLAR MINIMUM

Abstract

Purpose: to present temperature variations of electrons and ions obtained at the Institute of Ionosphere (Kharkiv) with an incoherent scatter radar during the 23rd solar cycle minimum, and compare the obtained results with the corresponding data of IRI-2012 model. Design/methodology/approach: Data are obtained by incoherent scattering. Method of solving the inverse radiophysics problem was used for analysis. Two-dimensional ambiguity function was used for specification. Findings: It has been found that in most cases the IRI-2012 model overestimates the values of electron and ion temperatures as against experimental data. The maximum differences are observed at night and can be about 500 K in summer, and 700 K in winter. Also, the effects of sunrise and sunset in magnetoconjugate area are considered. Conclusions: It is confirmed that to adequately describe processes in the ionosphere it is necessary to have a systematic approach which takes into account interaction in ionospheric regions located in magneto-conjugate area. Such regularities must be taken into account for correction of ionospheric model for the Central European region.

Keywords

• method of incoherent scattering
• electron temperature
• ion temperature
• magneto-conjugate area