ionospheric e–f valley observed by a sounding rocket at the low-latitude station hainan
;J. K. Shi;Z. Wang;K. Torkar;M. Friedrich;X. Wang;C. Liu;Y. B. Guan;G. W. Zhu
journal of food measurement and characterization2013Vol. 31pp. 1459-1462
135
shi2013annalesionospheric
Abstract
According to the sounding rocket experiment conducted at Hainan ionospheric
observatory (19.5° N, 109.1° E), a valley between the
E layer and F layer in the ionospheric electron density profile is observed
and presented. The sounding rocket was launched in the morning (06:15 LT) on
7 May 2011, and the observed electron density profile outside the valley agrees with the
simultaneous observation by the DPS-4 digisonde at the same station. The
width of the observed valley was about 42 km, the depth almost 50%,
and the altitude of the electron density minimum 123.5 km. This is the
first observation of the E–F valley in the low-latitude region in the East
Asian sector. The results are also compared with models, and the physical
mechanism of the observed valley is discussed in this paper.