The interest of information obtained by incoherent scatter technique

Incoherent scatter measurements are of great value for establishing and improving the IRI. This holds, in particular, for the topside electron density profile, for the valley occurring under certain conditions between regions E and F, and for the electron and ion temperature profiles. Extension in time of the observations could be very helpful for future work on IRI.     

Determining electron density profiles for the middle ionosphere

Using daytime numerical ionospheric profiles from W. Becker's mid-latitude collection, the geometric parameters of 3 or 4 LAY-functions were determined by best fit while all amplitudes were redetermined step by step with a least squares criterion. It appeared that the transition height and scale of the main function are interrelated while all other geometric parameters are independent. Median values for a spring and a summer period are found, and relations with the peak altitude and half-density thickness of the input profile are established.