Journal
ANNALES GEOPHYSICAE
Volume 22, Issue 12, Pages 4061-4069Publisher
COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH
DOI: 10.5194/angeo-22-4061-2004
Keywords
ionosphere; equatorial ionosphere; ionospheric irregularties; plasma waves and instabilities
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Jicamarca radar observations of bottom-type coherent scattering layers in the post-sunset bottomside F-region ionosphere are presented and analyzed. The morphology of the primary waves seen in radar images of the layers supports the hypothesis of Kudeki and Bhattacharyya (1999) that wind-driven gradient drift instabilities are operating. In one layer event when topside spread F did not occur, irregularities were distributed uniformly in space throughout the layers. In another event when topside spread F did eventually occur, the irregularities within the pre-existing bottom-type layers were horizontally clustered, with clusters separated by about 30 km. The same horizontal periodicity was evident in the radar plumes and large-scale irregularities that emerged later in the event. We surmise that horizontal periodicity in bottom-type layer irregularity distribution is indicative of large-scale horizontal waves in the bottomside F-region that may serve as seed waves for large-scale Rayleigh Taylor instabilities.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available