D-region ion-neutral collision frequency observed by incoherent scatter
spectral width combined with LIDAR measurements
Abstract
We have carried out a statistical study of neutral atmospheric
parameters in the mesosphere lower thermosphere (MLT) region, by
utilizing simultaneous measurements from the EISCAT VHF radar and sodium
LIDAR collocated at Tromsø , Norway. This study
focuses on the incoherent scatter (IS) spectral width, which is a
function of the ion-neutral collision frequency, ion temperature,
(equal to neutral temperatures in the D-region), and ion mass. Using the
neutral temperatures obtained from LIDAR, and ion mass estimated using a
chemistry model, we have measured the ion-neutral collision
frequency in the 80-100 km altitudes by fitting the spectral width.
The study shows that the current widely used formulae underestimate the
ion-neutral collision frequency on average by
1.53\(\pm\)0.24 in comparison to the measurements. Also,
the measured collision frequencies showed large temporal variations due
to neutral density fluctuations, indicating the presence of atmospheric
waves. The amplitudes of these waves are found to be as large as
50% of the background densities. This suggests that
individual spectral width measurements are likely influenced by these
random neutral density fluctuations, which can have a significant impact
on the IS temperature fits. In addition, for altitudes below 85 km, the
ion mass increases drastically indicating the presence of heavy cluster
ions. The dominance of heavy ions makes it further challenging to
extract the temperature values from the spectral width at these
altitudes. In light of these observations, the inherent limitations of
inferring temperatures from IS spectral width in the MLT altitudes are
studied.