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AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Keywords

  • ionosphere
  • tides
  • EIA

Index Terms

  • Ionosphere: Ionosphere/atmosphere interactions
  • Ionosphere: Equatorial ionosphere
  • Atmospheric Processes: Tides and planetary waves
  • Ionosphere: Ionospheric irregularities

Abstract

Intra-annual variability of the low-latitude ionosphere due to nonmigrating tides

N. M. Pedatella

Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA

J. M. Forbes

Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA

J. Oberheide

Physics Department, University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany

In-situ plasma density measurements from the CHAMP satellite between about 350–420 km altitude are used to delineate intra-annual variations in the longitudinal structure of the F-region ionosphere. It is shown that the longitude structures during mid-day local times are dominated by the space-based longitudinal wavenumbers k s = 2, 4 and 3 in January, July and December, respectively. These conform to the same dominating k s -values characterizing solar thermal tide zonal winds in the dynamo region, namely the westward-propagating semidiurnal tide with planetary-fixed zonal wavenumber s = 4 (SW4), and the eastward-propagating diurnal tides with s = −3 (DE3) and s = −2 (DE2), respectively. DE3 is the dominating tide during the other months. The results presented indicate that nonmigrating tides other than DE3 may significantly impact the longitudinal structure of the low-latitude ionosphere during certain months.

Received 13 July 2008; accepted 8 August 2008; published 23 September 2008.

Citation: Pedatella, N. M., J. M. Forbes, and J. Oberheide (2008), Intra-annual variability of the low-latitude ionosphere due to nonmigrating tides, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L18104, doi:10.1029/2008GL035332.

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