HR: 1340h
AN: SA13A-1065    [Abstracts]
TI: Comparison of the ionospheric profiles derived with radio occultation technique to the Digisonde data
AU: Reinisch, B W
EM: Bodo_Reinisch@uml.edu
AF: Center for Atmospheric Research, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 600 Suffolk St., Lowell, MA 01854, United States
AU: * Paznukhov, V
EM: Vadym_Paznukhov@uml.edu
AF: Center for Atmospheric Research, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 600 Suffolk St., Lowell, MA 01854, United States
AB: COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 is a joint Taiwan-U.S. multi satellite project that started in December of 2005, and is expected to last for five years. GPS radio occultation receivers onboard the satellites make it possible to measure ionospheric electron density profiles on a global scale using radio occultation (RO) technique. Such observations will provide data for studying ionospheric plasma structures and improving large-scale theoretical models. However, the RO measurements first need to be verified with other established ionospheric techniques. We present results of the comparison of the COSMIC RO profiles and simultaneous measurements made with ground based digisonde sounders using the data collected in December 2006. Results generally demonstrate a good agreement between the two techniques, at least in terms of the critical frequency, foF2, with the typical absolute error in RO measurements smaller than 1 MHz. A few cases of significant deviations of the RO profiles from the digisonde data have been observed, however. Having analyzed the erroneous RO measurements we make recommendations for future development of the RO technique and satellite observations on a global scale.
DE: 2403 Active experiments
DE: 2427 Ionosphere/atmosphere interactions (0335)
DE: 2467 Plasma temperature and density
DE: 2494 Instruments and techniques
SC: SPA-Aeronomy [SA]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting