Ionospheric plasma disturbances generated by naturally occurring large-scale anomalous heat sources

Abstract

We report the findings from our investigation on the possibility of large-scale anomalous thermal gradients to generate acoustic-gravity waves (AGWs) and traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs). In particular, here we consider the case of summer 2006 North American heat wave event as a concrete example of such large-scale natural thermal gradients. This special scenario of AGW/TID generation was formulated based on the results of our experiments at the Arecibo Observatory in July 2006, followed by a systematic monitoring/surveillance of total electron content (TEC) fluctuations over North America in 2005–2007 using the MIT Haystack Observatory's Madrigal database. The data from our Arecibo experiments indicate a continual occurrence of intense AGW/TID over the Caribbean on 21–24 July 2006, and the Madrigal TEC data analysis shows that the overall level of TID activity over North America had increased by ∼0.2 TECU during the summer 2006 heat wave event. Our proposed scenario is in agreement with these empirical observations, and is generally consistent with a number of past ionospheric HF heating experiments related to AGW/TID generation.