Topside electron temperature models for low and high solar activity

Abstract

It is now well known that in the topside ionosphere thermal conduction from the protonosphere becomes the dominant factor over the heating and loss terms in shaping the ionospheric electron temperature (T_e) profile. By analyzing a limited database of incoherent scatter (IS) T_e measurements, Mahajan and Pandey [J. Geophys. Res. 85 (1980) 213] reported a correlation between the electron heat flux and electron density in the topside ionosphere. Since attention has been steadily mounting for the empirical modeling of Te, we now exploit the large database of IS measurements of T_e and N_e at Arecibo during 1989-1990 (high solar activity), as well as during 1975-1976 (low solar activity) for this purpose. We again find a functional relationship between heat flux and electron density in the topside ionosphere during both the solar activities. These functional relationships are used to generate topside T_e profiles.