Millstone Hill Thomson Scatter Results for 1971

Abstract

During 1971, the incoherent scatter radar at Millstone Hill (42.6°N, 71.5°W) was employed to measure the electron density, electron and ion temperatures, and the vertical velocity of the 0[superscript +] ions in the F-region over periods of 24 hours on 20 days. The observations spanned the height interval 200 to 900 km, approximately, and achieved a time resolution of about 30 minutes. This report presents these results, after smoothing as a set of machine-drawn contour plots. The report discusses the behavior observed in 1971 in light of that seen in previous years. A significant number of days appear to have been disturbed by large traveling ionospheric disturbances. Results for the average exospheric temperature, the mean meridional, and zonal winds for 1970and 1971 derived from these incoherent scatter measurements in a separate study by B.A. Emery are summarized here for completeness. The results appear to confirm the mean wind behavior that would be predicted by the recent Mass-Spectrometer, Incoherent-Scatter (MSIS) global model for the thermosphere and support the view that interhemispheric transport of light neutral constituents (e.g., atomic oxygen) gives rise to tie anomalous seasonal behavior of the ionosphere at midlatitudes.