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A Novel Method for Deriving the Vary‐Chap Scale Height Profile in the Topside Ionosphere
Author(s) -
Wang Sicheng,
Huang Sixun,
Fang Hanxian
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-9402
pISSN - 2169-9380
DOI - 10.1029/2020ja028514
Subject(s) - scale height , electron density , ionosphere , international reference ionosphere , scale (ratio) , mathematics , physics , geodesy , computational physics , tec , electron , atmospheric sciences , meteorology , total electron content , geology , geophysics , quantum mechanics
The modeling of topside ionospheric electron density using height‐varying scale height methods have received increasing attention. The modified Chapman function with a variable scale height, known as Vary‐Chap function, can well represent the topside electron density profiles, and is considered as a promising direction to improve the International Reference Ionosphere model. In order to facilitate modeling, a new formula with four unknown coefficients is proposed to fit the Vary‐Chap scale height, and these unknowns can be determined by the least squares technique. The approximated electron density profile is reconstructed by using the fitted scale height, and its average percentage error relative to the measured electron density profile is quantitatively analyzed by using the Alouette/ISIS topside sounder data sets and COSMIC radio occultation databases, and the accuracies of five other approaches (i.e., Nava et al., 2008, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jastp.2008.01.015 ; Nusmei et al., 2012, https://doi.org/10.1029/2012RS004989 ; Porl et al., 2019, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-019-09521-3 ; Reinisch et al., 2007, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2006.05.032 ; Wu et al., 2020, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JA027637 ) to approximate the topside electron density profiles are also compared. From the perspective of average percentage error, our formula performs well to reconstruct the topside electron density profiles, especially at the altitudes between hmF2 and hmF2 + 1,200 km.