Bistatic HF Observations of Ionospheric Irregularities in Antarctic Peninsula Region
Abstract
First results of plasma irregularities observations in Antarctic Peninsula are presented. This region represents special interest to the ionospheric community being a hot spot of AGW activity as one of the most meteorologically active (i.e. associated with cyclones, convective plumes, enhanced zonal winds, orographic waves, etc.) regions of the Earth, which makes it a very good candidate for studying tropospheric-ionospheric interaction and propagation of the weather disturbances from the ground level to the ionospheric heights. A new data-acquisition system for bistatic coherent HF sounding of the ionosphere was installed in June 2015. HF transmitter operating at frequencies from 2 to 6 MHz was deployed at the Ukrainian station Akademik Vernadsky and receiving system was deployed at the U.S. Palmer station "Palmer" establishing approximately 53 km long radiolink. The receive system is built using software defined radio USRP N210 units. Variations of the parameters of ionospherically reflected HF signal on this quasi-vertical radio path are used for deriving TID characteristics. This makes it possible to analyze irregularities occurrence and behavior. Our first results show that during the Antarctic winter time TIDs are observed predominantly under the daytime conditions. The observed periods of the disturbances ranged from as short as 5 min to almost an hour. Preliminary analysis of multifrequency observations indicates that TID amplitude increases with height. Also the propagation direction of the irregularities demonstrates a rather regular behavior, e.g., under the quiet geomagnetic conditions, TID direction appears to be strongly controlled by the neutral wind azimuth, and therefore displays a very repetitive pattern from day to day.A comparison of the HF observations of the plasma irregularities with the measurements made using GNSS signals is also presented. Quasi-periodic changes associated with the wave propagation are registered simultaneously in both types of data making it possible to enhance the reliability of the measurements by taking into the account the observation geometry effects.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFMSA21A2362P
- Keywords:
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- 2499 General or miscellaneous;
- IONOSPHEREDE: 7999 General or miscellaneous;
- SPACE WEATHER