Determination Of Daytime Midlatitude Electron Density Profiles From Satellite UV And In-Situ Data

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of determining accurate, real-time ionospheric electron density profiles (EDP) using passive UV and other sensor measurements from satellites. This is done by using real-time satellite data to constrain the geophysical parameters that appear in an ab initio theoretical daytime midlatitude ionospheric model, creating what we call the AFGL constrained EDP model. In February and March 1987 a series of coincident measurements were made by the Millstone Hill incoherent scatter radar and the Polar BEAR satellite multispectral UV imager. These observations of electron density profiles and daytime UV airglow give us an excellent opportunity to test the AFGL constrained EDP model with observational data. Using the satellite UV data and the radar-determined plasma data at one altitude (in-situ satellite plasma measurements were not available), we apply the constrained AFGL model to compute the EDP from about 90 to 600 km. By comparing the model results to the EDP measured by the radar, we show that the AFGL constrained EDP model predicts the EDP more accurately than can empirical models, such as the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI), which contain no real-time data.