Characteristics of ionospheric irregularities capable of producing quasi-horizontal traces on ionograms

Abstract

This paper presents simulated ionograms calculated for a parabolic ionospheric layer containing irregularities in the form of small amplitude waves. With small amplitudes, perturbation techniques can be used enabling results for the irregular ionospheres to be calculated from the results for smooth ionospheres. This approach is relatively straightforward and avoids having to ray trace new paths each time the irregularity parameters are changed. It is, however, restricted to irregularities which do not cause multiple echoes. Irregularities with vertical wavelengths of up to a few kilometres can produce significant changes in the ionosphere over height intervals smaller than those involved in reflecting a single pulse. Consequently, in the simulation procedure, it is essential to consider not just the carrier frequency but the complete frequency spectrum of the pulse. Irregularities with vertical wavelengths of the order of 10 km or more can produce ripples in an ionogram trace. These will, of course, be more evident on ionograms with high frequency resolution. Irregularities with vertical wavelengths of up to several kilometres and amplitudes up to a few per cent can produce significant pulse spreading and splitting. The actual effects depend not just on the irregularity properties but also on the ionosonde pulse width, gain and frequency and height resolutions. Some simulations show trace splitting and quasi-horizontal traces similar in many respects to effects observed by Bowman (1987, J. atmos. terr. Phys. 49, 1007) and Bowman et al. (1988, J. atmos. terr. Phys. 50, 797). Consequently it is suggested that, at least in some cases, small amplitude (≤3%) and small scale (≤4 km) irregularities produce the spread-ifF reported by these authors.