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Utilization of sky‐wave backscatter sounders for real‐time monitoring of ionospheric structure over extended geographic regions
Author(s) -
Fridman Sergey V.,
Berkey Frank T.
Publication year - 1998
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 - 10.1029/98gl00428
Subject(s) - ionosphere , radar , remote sensing , ionogram , skywave , geology , inversion (geology) , backscatter (email) , azimuth , environmental science , meteorology , geophysics , computer science , geography , electron density , telecommunications , physics , seismology , plasma , wireless , quantum mechanics , astronomy , tectonics
Backscatter ionograms (BI) and quasi vertical incidence (QVI) ionograms are routinely collected at over‐the‐horizon radar (OTHR) installations operated by the U.S. Navy. The BI provides information about the downrange ionosphere up to several thousand km from the sounder. In this paper, a method for the quantitative extraction of this information by means of a leading edge inversion technique is described and applied to data acquired by the BI sounder operating at the Chesapeake, VA OTHR facility. Because this sounder is used to sample 8 azimuthal sectors, maps of plasma frequency at a constant altitude can be derived over a geographic region that covers a 64° angular sector out to distances of ∼2000 km. The unique capability of the OTHR BI sounders to provide realtime monitoring of the ionosphere over a large geographical area is demonstrated.