Ionospheric temperatures at sunspot minimum

Details Ionospheric temperatures at sunspot minimum Ionospheric temperatures at sunspot minimum

Apr 1965

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1965jatp...27..457g&link_type=abstract

Journal of Atmospheric and Terrestrial Physics, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 457-474

Physics

11

Scientific paper

The temperature profile throughout the ionosphere is determined by the relative importance of the following processes: the rate of heat input to the ambient electron gas by Coulomb scattering of photoelectrons; the rate of transfer of heat from the electron gas to the neutral atmosphere; heat conduction by the electron gas. Theoretical temperature profiles have been obtained by Dalgarno and by Hanson under the assumption of no heat conduction. These profiles show a departure from thermal equilibrium beginning at about 120 km, the electron temperature reaching a maximum near 225 km, with thermal equilibrium again being established in the region at and above 350 km. This paper describes a numerical solution of the electron conduction equation and shows that the electron temperature increases monotonically above the 120 km level for a model approximating conditions near sunspot minimum. The failure of the electron temperature to decrease to that of the neutral atmosphere above 200 km is attributed to the low electron density at sunspot minimum and consequent inefficiency of heat transfer to the neutral atmosphere. The temperature profiles of Dalgarno and of Hanson might be expected to be represent-ative of conditions near sunspot maximum when the electron density is high. Scaling of the relevant parameters in the present work to approximate sunspot maximum conditions confirms this expectation.

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