Enhancing the ISIS-1 Topside Digital Ionogram Database

0477965 - ÚFA 2018 BE eng A - Abstrakt
Benson, R. F. - Bilitza, D. - Fung, S. F. - Truhlík, Vladimír - Wang, Y.
Enhancing the ISIS-1 Topside Digital Ionogram Database.
Papers from URSI: XXXIInd General Assembly and Scientific Symposium (URSI GASS). Ghent: URSI, 2017. HG19-2.
[URSI General Assembly and Scientific Symposium (URSI GASS) 2017 /32./. 19.08.2017-26.08.2017, Montreal]
Institucionální podpora: RVO:68378289
Klíčová slova: heliophysics virtual wave observatory * digital ionogram database
Kód oboru RIV: DG - Vědy o atmosféře, meteorologie

We will present the status of, and illustrate scientific results from, an ongoing project to significantly expand the topside-sounder digital ionogram database, in the NASA Space Physics Data Facility (SPDF) and the NASA Heliophysics Virtual Wave Observatory (VWO), of files suitable for automatic processing into vertical topside ionosphere electron density profiles Ne(h). These digital topside ionograms were produced from a subset of the original analog telemetry tapes from the International Satellites for Ionospheric Studies (ISIS) program [1] but many of the digital files need improvements before the ionospheric radio-reflection traces can be automatically inverted into Ne(h) profiles [2]. The Topside Ionogram Scaler with True height algorithm (TOPIST) was developed to auto process ISIS-2 ionograms [3, 4] and has been modified to also process ISIS-1 ionograms [2]. Such auto processing is needed to provide a large topside Ne(h) profile database for improvements in modeling the topside ionosphere using the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) [5]. The goal is to provide a database that will enable the expansion of the ISIS-1 ionospheric topside Ne(h) profile coverage in latitude, longitude, and epoch. Our focus is on ISIS 1 because it includes altitudes up to 3,500 km, well above the 1,400 km limit of ISIS 2, where IRI model predictions are in the greatest need of improvement (see, e.g., Fig. 10b of [1]). Most Ne(h) profiles available after 1969 are from ISIS 2 (either from hand-scaling of 35-mm film ionograms or auto TOPIST-processing of digital ionograms); we are providing high-quality ISIS-1 topside digital ionograms, and as many Ne(h) profiles as possible, for these later years. In addition to their use in providing Ne(h) profiles examples from these new ISIS-1 digital ionograms will be used to demonstrate the use of topside sounders as mobile plasma heaters conducting active wave/particle experiments within the ionospheric plasma.
Trvalý link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0274205