Eikonal acceleration technique for studying of the Earth and planetary atmospheres by radio occultation method

Abstract

[1] Lately introduced a phase (eikonal) acceleration technique extends an applicable domain of radio occultation (RO) method and can be applied for identification of the plasma layers in the lower ionosphere. This technique can also convert the eikonal excess or Doppler frequency changes measured in RO experiments into the refractive attenuation variations. From these derived refractive attenuation and amplitude data one can estimate the integral absorption of radio waves. This is important for study of the radio wave propagation effects in the atmospheric telecommunication links and for remote sensing of the atmosphere and ionosphere. The advantages of the eikonal acceleration technique are validated by analyzing the RO data from the Challenging Minisatellite Payload (CHAMP) and Venus missions.