Plasma wave heating during extreme electric fields in the high‐latitude E region

Abstract

This article presents measurements of electron heating in the high‐latitude E region during rare, extreme convection electric fields (up to 160 mV/m). As inferred from the merged Sondrestrom incoherent scatter spectra measurements, the electron temperature monotonically increases with the electric field reaching 4000+ K, without any indication of saturation, and the radar backscatter power monotonically decreases.