A Method for Remote Sensing of Ionospheric Disturbances from Large Mesospheric Electric Fields

Abstract

A method is developed and tested for simultaneous remote sensing the intensity of large mesospheric electric field (LMEF) and the disturbances of basic parameters of ionosphere D-region that arise in this field by using data records of the MF radio signals partially reflected from the ionosphere. The model representation of the LMEF source as the current source has been used. As an example, the height profiles of LMEF intensity, electron number density and effective collision frequency, relative disturbances in electron temperature, effective rate at which the negative ions are formed by attachment of electrons to neutral constituents, effective rate of electron-ion recombination, fractional loss of energy per electron collision with a heavy particle, low-frequency conductivity of the ionospheric D-region plasma, positive and negative ion number density, are presented as observed near Kharkiv. The estimates of the total error in the above-mentioned parameters have been calculated.