E.: Determination of the vertical electron-density profile in ionospheric tomography: experimental results

• Main Authors: C. N. Mitchell, L. Kersley, J. A. T. Heaton, S. E. Pryse
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: B 1997
• Subjects: EISCAT
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.566.6088; http://www.ann-geophys.net/15/747/1997/angeo-15-747-1997.pdf

Abstract. The reconstruction of the vertical electron-density profile is a fundamental problem in ionospheric tomography. Lack of near-horizontal ray paths limits the information available on the vertical profile, so that the resultant image of electron density is biased in a horizontal sense. The vertical profile is of great impor-tance as it aects the authenticity of the entire tomo-graphic image. A new method is described whereby the vertical profile is selected using relative total-electron-content measurements. The new reconstruction process has been developed from modelling studies. A range of background ionospheres, representing many possible peak heights, scale heights and electron densities are formed from a Chapman profile on the bottomside with a range of topside profiles. The iterative reconstruction process is performed on all of these background ionospheres and a numerical selection criterion em-ployed to select the final image. The resulting tomo-graphic images show excellent agreement in electron density when compared with independent verification provided by the EISCAT radar. 1