F1 region ion composition in Svalbard during the International Polar
Year 2007-2008
Abstract
Ions in the F region ionosphere at 150-400 km altitude consist mainly of
molecular NO+ and O2+, and atomic O+. Incoherent scatter (IS) radars are
sensitive to the molecular-to-atomic ion density ratio, but its effect
to the observed incoherent scatter spectra is almost identical with that
of the ion temperature. It is thus very difficult to fit both the ion
temperature and the fraction of O+ ions to the observed spectra. In this
paper, we introduce a novel combination of Bayesian filtering,
smoothness priors, and chemistry modeling to solve for F1 region O+ ion
fraction from EISCAT Svalbard IS radar (75.43° corrected geomagnetic
latitude) data during the international polar year (IPY) 2007-2008. We
find that the fraction of O+ ions in the F1 region ionosphere is
controlled by ion temperature and electron production. The median value
of the molecular-to-atomic ion transition altitude during IPY varies
from 187 km at 16-17 MLT to 208 km at 04-05 MLT. The ion temperature has
maxima at 05-06 MLT and 15-16 MLT, but the transition altitude does not
follow the ion temperature, because photoionization lowers the
transition altitude. A daytime transition altitude maximum is observed
in winter, when lack of photoionization leads to very low daytime
electron densities. Both ion temperature and the molecular-to-atomic ion
transition altitude correlate with the Polar Cap North geomagnetic
index. The annual medians of the fitted transition altitudes are 14-32
km lower than those predicted by the International Reference Ionosphere.