Theoretical Simulations of the Martian Ionosphere and Comparisons to Observations

Details Theoretical Simulations of the Martian Ionosphere and Comparisons to Observations Theoretical Simulations of the Martian Ionosphere and Comparisons to Observations

May 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004agusmsa14a..04w&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2004, abstract #SA14A-04

Other

2427 Ionosphere/Atmosphere Interactions (0335), 2459 Planetary Ionospheres (5435, 5729, 6026, 6027, 6028), 5435 Ionospheres (2459), 6225 Mars

Scientific paper

Approximately 2000 profiles of ionospheric electron density between 100 and 200 km altitude have been generated by the Radio Science Experiment on Mars Global Surveyor and publicly released on the PDS. We have developed a theoretical ionospheric model to help us analyse these observations. Our model includes photochemistry and diffusion of ions, solar fluxes from the SOLAR2000 model, and a simple fixed neutral atmosphere. We will compare each electron density profile to a predicted profile and investigate how well such basic parameters as the altitude, electron density, and layer width at several ionospheric peaks, total electron content, slab thickness, and topside scale height are predicted. We will compare variations in observed electron density to variations in predicted electron density due to day-to-day changes in the solar flux to test the hypothesis that solar flux variations are responsible for most ionospheric variations on that timescale. Martian ionospheric variabilities attributed to solar flux variations will be compared to terrestrial E-region variabilities. By adjusting the variation of neutral atmospheric density and temperature with altitude in our model, we are able to investigate how the properties of the thermosphere influence and control those of the ionosphere. As noted by Bougher and colleagues, tides in the thermosphere can cause the altitude of ionospheric electron density peaks to vary with longitude. We shall investigate whether other basic parameters extracted from the electron density profiles are also coupled to the thermosphere and show these tidally-induced variations. We shall vary the neutral atmospheric properties in our model to further investigate the effects of thermospheric tides on the martian ionosphere.

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