An evaluation of International Reference Ionosphere electron density in the polar cap and cusp using EISCAT Svalbard radar measurements

Bjoland, Lindis Merete; Belyey, Vasyl; Løvhaug, Unni Pia; La Hoz, Cesar

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-34-751-2016

Articles | Volume 34, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-34-751-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-34-751-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 34, issue 9

Regular paper

|

13 Sep 2016

Regular paper |

| 13 Sep 2016

An evaluation of International Reference Ionosphere electron density in the polar cap and cusp using EISCAT Svalbard radar measurements

Lindis Merete Bjoland, Vasyl Belyey, Unni Pia Løvhaug, and Cesar La Hoz

Data sets

EISCAT Svalbard radar data CEDAR Archival Madrigal Database http://madrigal.haystack.mit.edu

Fortran code for various versions of the IRI model International Reference Ionosphere http://irimodel.org

Short summary

The international reference ionosphere (IRI) model is a widely used model of the ionosphere. We compared this model with 16 years of radar measurements of electron density from Svalbard at altitudes between 200 and 500 km. Our results show that the model is biased towards an underestimation of the electron density in the high-latitude ionosphere and that this underestimation is most severe at nighttime. The model performs best at altitudes around the peak height of the electron density.