Abstract
Abstract. We present radar backscatter power measurements using the CUTLASS HF radar at Hankasalmi, Finland from F-region field-aligned irregularities induced by HF radio pumping with the EISCAT Heating facility. A novel radar operating mode is used in which the radar frequency is rapidly swept through a number of bands, making use of the varying ionospheric refraction to probe different heights within the heated region. We obtain height profiles of backscatter power which correspond to e-folding scale lengths of around 20km for the mean-square electron density perturbations for pump wave interaction heights in the region of 240-250km in daytime conditions. The results are in agreement with previous measurements made by other techniques. We discuss some problems with the method and suggest improvements for future experiments.
Highlights
IntroductionJones et al (1984) made measurements of the anomalous absorption of high frequency (HF) waves passing through the ionosphere heated by the Tromsø heater and concluded that the e-folding vertical scale of the mean-square electron density perturbation in the irregularities was on the order of 20 km
Artificial field-aligned irregularities (AFAI) are one of the most important effects produced by the interaction of a high power “heater” or “pump” high frequency (HF) wave with the F-region ionosphere (Gurevich, 1978; Robinson, 1989)
We have found that it is practical to use a HF coherent scatter radar to explore the height variation of the electron density perturbations in irregularities generated by radiowave pumping of the ionosphere
Summary
Jones et al (1984) made measurements of the anomalous absorption of HF waves passing through the ionosphere heated by the Tromsø heater and concluded that the e-folding vertical scale of the mean-square electron density perturbation in the irregularities was on the order of 20 km. The EISCAT UHF radar (Rishbeth and van Eyken, 1993), co-located with the heater, was operated with the beam fieldaligned in the F-region (12.9◦ south of vertical in the magnetic meridian plane) to make measurements of the ionospheric plasma parameters, most importantly the electron density profile. The CUTLASS radar records the parameters resulting from functional fits to the autocorrelation function of the received signal in each range gate, as well as various system parameters In this experiment we are interested in measuring the backscatter power, since this is proportional to the mean-square electron density variation in the irregularities.
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