Speaker
Description
The Earth’s ionosphere originates propagation effects at various orders that can be observed on radio waves that traverse it. Ionospheric propagation effects can be utilized to infer properties of the ionosphere: for example, temporal fluctuations in the received radio-wave intensity (or scintillation) can be associated with irregularities forming in the inertial subrange of the spatial distribution of electron density structures.
The observation of different propagation effects (e.g., on the phase and on the intensity of radio waves) can be utilized to understand the spatial scales over which electron density irregularities form and evolve. This is instrumental to the understanding of instability mechanisms taking place in the ionosphere. Due to the dispersion nature of the ionospheric plasma, the observation of these propagation effects over a wide interval of radio wave frequencies allows to sample ionospheric irregularities over a wide range of spatial scales.
This contribution discusses the combination of ionospheric observations carried out by means of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and by means of LOFAR radio telescopes. Whilst GNSS observations focus more on phase fluctuations, LOFAR observations are for radio wave scintillation at VHF (from sources such as Cas A or Cyg A). An essential aspect in this combination is the different sensitivity of the two instruments to ionospheric propagation effects and, hence, to the ability of detecting ionospheric structures.
Here, a characterization of different types of ionospheric irregularities in relation to the propagation effects that they induce as well as to the sensitivity of the two instruments is discussed, together with a discussion on the potential offered by this type of studies for future ionospheric radio science.
