Rocket Measurements of Daytime Electron Density and Temperature Profiles in the Polar Ionosphere

• Main Authors: Tadahiko Ogawa, Hirotaka Mori, Shigeru Miyazaki
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Radio Research Laboratories 1978
• Subjects: Syowa Station; Antarc*; Antarctica; Memoirs of National Institute of Polar Research; Polar Research
• Online Access: https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=902; http://id.nii.ac.jp/1291/00000902/; https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=902&item_no=1&attribute_id=18&file_no=1

Two sounding rockets, S-210JA-22 and S-310JA-1,were successfully launched into the quiet daytime ionosphere from Syowa Station, Antarctica in the summer of 1976 for measuring electron density and temperature. The S-210JA-22 experiment shows that the E-region electron density (N_e) was nearly 2×(10)^4/(cm)^3 and that the electron temperature (T_e) increased with altitude, being 600±200K at altitude of 100km to 900±300K at 120km. Profiles between 90 and 215km measured by S-310JA-1 reveal that N_e changed slowly from 1×(10)^5 at 100km to 7×(10)^4/(cm)^3 at 215km and that T_e had a minimum of 500±100K at 110km which was followed by the gradual increase attaining to 1900±200K at 215km. Comparing the present results with the daytime electron density profiles obtained at Syowa Station during 1970-1973 and with those at mid-latitude, it is pointed out that main ionization process occurring in the polar D-region is a high energy particle precipitation from the magnetosphere even under quiet daytime ionospheric conditions.