Title: Determination of ionospheric electron density profiles from satellite UV emission measurements
Description: The possible use of satellite ultraviolet measurements to deduce the ionospheric electron density profile (EDP) on a global basis is discussed. A system concept is considered and analyzed which (a) develops and installs a UV sensor on the DMSP satellite and develops an associated automatic data processing (software) system, (b) utilities optical data together with DMSP electron density and temperature data to deduce the near real-time EDP near the satellite orbital plane, and (c) transmits this EDP data to be used together with ground-based ionosonde data and GPS total electron content data to specify the global EDP for systems users. The ionosonde and total electron content data would increase the EDP data base generated by the UV data and refine the UV based EDP where coincident data existed. This report considers (a) the daytime low to midlatitude ionosphere from 90 to 1000 km, (b) the nighttime midlatitude from about 250 km to 1000km, and (c) the auroral E layer from 90 to about 200 km for undisturbed conditions. The spatial resolution for the daytime and nighttime EDP is at least one vertical profile for each square 500 km on a side and for the auroral E layer at least one vertical profile for each square 50km on a side. Other ionospheric regions were not considered because of frequent occurrence of irregularities or highly variable transport conditions.
Subjects: Ionospheric electron density, Remote sensing