Abstract
Over the years, an amount of models relying on effective parameters were implemented in the challenging issue of the topside ionosphere description. These models are based on different analytical functions, but all of them depend on a parameter called effective scale height, that is deduced from topside electron density measurements. As their names state, they are effective in reproducing the topside electron density profile only when applied to the analytical function used to derive them. Then, in principle, they do not have any physical meaning. It is the goal of this paper to mathematically link the effective scale height modeled through the Epstein layer to the vertical scale height theoretically deduced from the plasma ambipolar diffusion theory. Firstly, effective and theoretical scale heights are linked through a mathematical relation by showing that they tend to each other in the topside ionosphere. Secondly, their connection is preliminarily demonstrated by calculating effective scale height values from the entire COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 radio occultation dataset. Thirdly, a possible connection between the vertical gradient of the topside scale height (as obtained by COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 satellites) and the electron temperature (as obtained by ESA Swarm B satellite) is studied by highlighting corresponding similarities in the diurnal, seasonal, solar activity, and latitudinal variability.
Highlights
Over the years, an amount of models relying on effective parameters were implemented in the challenging issue of the topside ionosphere description
Several modeling techniques were developed to obtain the most reliable picture of the topside vertical electron density profile through an increasingly sophisticated description of the topside effective vertical scale h eight[5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19] (H). These vertical scale heights gained the adjective “effective” because they are effective in reproducing the topside electron density profile only when applied to the analytical function used to derive them from either measured topside profiles or measured electron density values at low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite altitude
It is worth noting that these results are valid until about 800 km of height; for higher altitudes it has been demonstrated that a departure from the linearity takes place[14]
Summary
An amount of models relying on effective parameters were implemented in the challenging issue of the topside ionosphere description These models are based on different analytical functions, but all of them depend on a parameter called effective scale height, that is deduced from topside electron density measurements. Several modeling techniques were developed to obtain the most reliable picture of the topside vertical electron density profile through an increasingly sophisticated description of the topside effective vertical scale h eight[5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19] (H) These vertical scale heights gained the adjective “effective” because they are effective in reproducing the topside electron density profile only when applied to the analytical function used to derive them from either measured topside profiles or measured electron density values at low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite altitude. This is why the most recent topside models are based on effective scale heights varying with altitude
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