Estimating The Ratio Of Neutral To Ion Metals In The Sporadic Layers At Arecibo

Details Estimating The Ratio Of Neutral To Ion Metals In The Sporadic Layers At Arecibo Estimating The Ratio Of Neutral To Ion Metals In The Sporadic Layers At Arecibo

Dec 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005agufmsa13a0236r&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005, abstract #SA13A-0236

Other

0300 Atmospheric Composition And Structure, 0335 Ion Chemistry Of The Atmosphere (2419, 2427), 0340 Middle Atmosphere: Composition And Chemistry, 2419 Ion Chemistry And Composition (0335), 2427 Ionosphere/Atmosphere Interactions (0335)

Scientific paper

We know that the ablation of meteoroids leads to the deposition of various metals above 70 km in the Earth's atmosphere. Metal resonance lidars are used to study the characteristics of various neutral layers at several locations. At Arecibo, we have the capability to observe metallic species like Na, K, Fe, Ca, and Ca+ along with the electron density using incoherent scatter radar (ISR). The collective knowledge of these metals and their ion concentrations is crucial to understand mesospheric chemistry. Since, only Ca+ concentration can be obtained using ground based lidar measurements, we use earlier rocket borne in-situ mass spectrometer measurements to infer neutral to ion metal ratios. Various rocket borne in-situ mass spectrometers have revealed layers of metal ions in the 80 - 130 km altitude region that coincide with the zone where meteors are observed. Such measurements have shown that at 95 km, 33% of the total ionization consists of Fe+ while Na+ is close to 12%. This decreases to 6% and 0.08% at 90 km for Fe+ and Na+, respectively. Using such typical values, as mentioned above, we estimate the fraction of Fe+ and Na+ ions in sporadic E layers at Arecibo as observed using the ISR. This, combined with the neutral measurements of the same metals using lidar, leads to neutral-to-ion ratios of about 0.4 for the case of iron and 0.3 for sodium at 95 km. However, at 90 km the ratio of Fe/Fe+ is nearly 4 times larger than Na/Na+. We plan to extend this study to other metals and estimate this ratio for meteor shower periods and quiet periods. The results may help clarify the fractionation/differential ablation process.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Estimating The Ratio Of Neutral To Ion Metals In The Sporadic Layers At Arecibo does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Estimating The Ratio Of Neutral To Ion Metals In The Sporadic Layers At Arecibo, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Estimating The Ratio Of Neutral To Ion Metals In The Sporadic Layers At Arecibo will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-752381