International reference ionosphere—Status 1995/96

Abstract

This paper describes the 1995/1996 status of IRI activities listing the improvements/additions that are currently being implemented. It also reports about a special IRI Task Force effort at the International Center for Theoretical Physics focusing on a better description of the “intermediate region“ (bottomside and F1). IRI modelling efforts are also continuing in the topside ionosphere. Better representations of the region above the F peak are of critical importance for many investigations/applications that require Total Electron Content (TEC) predictions. We will briefly report about efforts at GSFC to make Alouette/ISIS topside sounder data available for the modelling community. Reliability and accuracy of model predictions can be considerably increased through updating with real-time measurements. IRI has for some time had the facility of updates with co-located simultaneous F peak parameters (foF2, NmF2, hmF2, M(3000)F2). To expand this capability, updating algorithms are now under development that will allow updates with available peak parameters and/or Total Electron Content (TEC) measurements.