Essay On Ionosphere

1396 Words3 Pages

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
The upper part of atmosphere above 50 km is of importance to mankind. It acts as a shield to extreme ultraviolet and x-radiations harmful to human life. It also plays an important role in communication and navigation. The regions of atmosphere are defined in terms of ionization, temperature and composition. In terms of ionization, the region extending from 50 to 1000 km above the earth surface is called ionosphere. It consists of weakly ionized gas containing a large number of neutral molecules and relatively smaller number of electrons and ions. The main source of ionization are rays emitted from the sun, which results in formation of overlapping layers namely D, E, F1 and F2. In each layer, the ionization density peaks at a certain altitude and decreases above and below it. The D region has lowest ionization density and is available only during daytime. The ionization density has a peak value around 90 km. It is an absorbing region for radiowaves. The E region is known as the current bearing region. It lies in the range of around 90-125 km. The peak density in this layer is at about 120 km. It contains both the normal E and sporadic E layer. The electron density in E region starts decreasing with sunset and achieves an equilibrium value at night. The F region lies in the range of 125-600 km. It is divided into two layers, namely, F1 and F2 during daytime which merges to form a single layer during night. The F1 region has a peak density at around 200 km. It disappears after sunset. The F2 region has a peak density at about 300 km in day and the region extends to higher altitudes at night. After sunset, the electron density increases near the peak of the F-layer. The density attains an equilibrium value dur...

... middle of paper ...

...ns in phase but also in amplitude.
In order to develop the basic equations of scintillation theory, the following assumptions were taken by Tatarskii [1971] (1) The temporal variations of the irregularities is much slower compared to the wave period and the time taken by the signal to traverse through the irregularity layer is negligible compared to the time scale of temporal variation and (2) the operating wavelength is much smaller than the characteristic size of the irregularities.
If a radiowave of constant amplitude is incident on the irregularity slab of thickness L (Fig 2.2) where the layer is assumed to be a phase changing screen, the wave changes its phase when propagates through it. The emergent wave is represented as,
U0(ρ) = A0 exp [ -j φ(ρ)]

More about Essay On Ionosphere

Open Document