Ground measurements of thermospheric and ionospheric parameters: An introductive description of the existing resources

Abstract

During the last decade a lot of progress has been made in the comprehension of the thermosphere-ionosphere system. Physical models are now able to describe this coupled system and comparisons with ground or space measurements are now done on different time and spatial scales. Starting with a review of the input parameters used in such modeling and of their outputs, we outlined the parameters that can be measured from ground. Among the different techniques of measurements, two are particularly important: the incoherent scatter technique that is reviewed by the paper of Kofman (this issue) and the optical interferometric technique that we briefly describe here.