Time‐Dependent Inversion of Energetic Electron Precipitation Spectra From Ground‐Based Incoherent Scatter Radar Measurements

Abstract

AbstractIn the D‐region, the ionization rate cannot be detected directly with any known measurement technique, therefore it must be estimated. Starting from space‐based measurements of precipitating particle flux, we estimate the ionization rate in the atmosphere using the Electron Precipitation Monte Carlo transport method. This ionization rate is used to calculate the expected electron density in the D‐region with the Glukhov‐Pasko‐Inan five species (GPI5) atmospheric chemistry model. We then compare the simulated electron density with that measured by the Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar (PFISR). From ground‐based radar measurements of electron density enhancements due to sub‐relativistic and relativistic electron precipitation, we present a method to extract the ionization rate altitude profiles using inverse theory. We use this estimation of ionization rate to find the energy distribution of the precipitating particles. With this inverse method, we are able to link ground measurements of electron density to the precipitating flux in a time dependent manner and with uncertainty in the inverted parameters. The method was tested on synthetic data and applied to specific PFISR data sets. The method is able to retrieve the ionization rate altitude profiles that, when forward modeled, return the expected electron densities within ∼7% error as compared to the PFISR data. For the case presented here, the arbitrary energy distribution inversion results are comparable in magnitude and shape to those presented in Turunen et al. (2016, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016jd025015) for the inversion of a single event of pulsating aurora observed by EISCAT.