Improvements in bottomside electron density definition in the Autoscala program. Issue 5 (1st March 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Scotto, C.; Sabbagh, D.
• Is Part Of: Advances in space research. Volume 65:Issue 5(2020)
• Page Start: 1432
• Page End: 1438
• Publication Date: 2020-03-01
• Subjects: Ionosonde -- Ionograms -- Automatic scaling -- Electron density profile -- Incoherent Scatter Radar; Space sciences -- Periodicals; Astronautics -- Periodicals; Geophysics -- Periodicals; 500.505
• DOI: 10.1016/j.asr.2019.12.004
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0273-1177

Abstract

Abstract: Some improvements introduced in the Autoscala program are presented. They include improvements in E valley modeling of the electron density profile N e ( h ), and in the link between the E valley and bottom-side F regions. An abrupt variation in N e ( h ) generated by the previous version of Autoscala under night conditions has been eliminated. A series of ionograms recorded by the Millstone Hill digisonde (42.6°, 288.5°) were automatically interpreted by the previous version of Autoscala and by the new one. Data from Incoherent Scatter Radar (ISR) were used to comparatively assess the performance of the two versions. For this purpose, the root mean square errors ( RMSE s) of the N e ( h ) provided by Autoscala were calculated relative to the corresponding values provided by ISR. A more accurate overall modeling of N e ( h ) was achieved by the new Autoscala version ( RMSE = 0.51 MHz for the new version against RMSE = 0.67 MHz for the previous one).