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Solar EUV flux, exospheric temperature and thermospheric wind inferred from incoherent scatter measurements of the electron density profile at Millstone Hill and Shigaraki
Author(s) -
Zhang ShunRong,
Oliver William L.,
Holt John M.,
Fukao Shoichiro
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2001gl013579
Subject(s) - millstone hill , exosphere , incoherent scatter , flux (metallurgy) , noon , extreme ultraviolet lithography , solar wind , thermosphere , physics , ionosphere , atmospheric sciences , electron density , solar minimum , environmental science , solar cycle , electron , plasma , geophysics , optics , materials science , ion , quantum mechanics , metallurgy
We explore a method for inferring solar EUV flux, atmospheric composition and wind using ionospheric electron density N e profile measurements. Incoherent scatter radar data from Millstone Hill and Shigaraki measured on October 5, 1989 are assimilated into a theoretical model whose driving forces, solar EUV flux, exosphere temperature T ex , and meridional wind, are adjustable. Adjustments are made to give best match between the model N e profile and the data. The derived T ex values, found to be low near noon at Millstone and high in the afternoon at Shigaraki, are essentially those required to give the [O]/[N 2 ] ratio necessary to fit the data. Our inferred EUV fluxes for the two sites are similar. Our technique of using profile data may resolve the ambiguity in deriving EUV and [O]/[N 2 ] from electron‐density measurements.