Enhanced EISCAT UHF backscatter during high-energy auroral electron precipitation

Natural enhancements in the backscattered power of incoherent scatter radars up to 5 orders of magnitudes above the thermal backscatter are sometimes observed at high latitudes. Recently observations of enhancements in the backscattered power including a feature at zero Doppler shift have been repor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annales Geophysicae
Main Authors: Schlatter, Nicola M., Ivchenko, Nickolay, Sergienko, T, Gustavsson, Björn Johan, Brändström, B. U. E.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Copernicus 2013
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10037/6045
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-31-1681-2013
Description
Summary:Natural enhancements in the backscattered power of incoherent scatter radars up to 5 orders of magnitudes above the thermal backscatter are sometimes observed at high latitudes. Recently observations of enhancements in the backscattered power including a feature at zero Doppler shift have been reported. These enhancements are limited in altitude to tens of kilometers. The zero Doppler shift feature has been interpreted as a signature of electron density cavitation. Enhanced plasma lines during these observations have also been reported. We report on the first EISCAT UHF observations of enhanced backscattered radar power including a zero Doppler shift feature. The enhancements originated from two distinct and intermittent layers at about 200 km altitude. The altitude extent of the enhancements, observed during auroral high-energy electron precipitation, was < 2 km.