Retrieval of east-west wind in the equatorial electrojet from the local wind-generated electric field

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The paper presents a method to retrieve the height-varying east-west wind U(z) in the equatorial electrojet from the local wind generated electric field E W(z), or from the radar-measured phase velocity V p II(z) of the type II plasma waves. The method is found to be satisfactory when E w ⪢ E p, where E p is the vertical polarization electric field generated by the global scale east-west electric field, EY, and E y < 0.2 mV m −1. Measurements of V p II by a VHF backscatter radar can be inverted to obtain the causative wind profile by this method. The method is tested using a simulation study in which E w(z) and V p II(z) as generated by two different wind models are used. The retrieved winds are compared with the original wind profiles and it is found that the error in the retrieved winds is mostly under 5%, for the case of no errors in the model Pedersen conductivity ( σ 1) profile and the E w(z) or V p II(z)(z) profiles used in the inversion. Even with a ±20% error in the above profiles, the errors in the retrieved winds are found to be less than 20% over 75% of the altitude range and 20–30% for the remaining 25% of the altitude range, on the average.