2011 SuperDARN Workshop
ABSTRACTS
SPEAR-induced F region heating effects as observed using CUTLASS and EISCAT Svalbard radar
H. Vickers and L.J. Baddeley
University Centre in Svalbard, Norway
abstract. In this study, results obtained from a recent heating experiment conducted using the SPEAR heating facility on Svalbard are presented. During this campaign, the CUTLASS Finland and Iceland radars made observations using a high spatial resolution scan mode. We show artificial backscatter measurements from both CUTLASS radars which were observed simultaneously with EISCAT Svalbard Radar (ESR) observations of SPEAR-enhanced ion lines. In particular, the ion lines are found to exhibit the Purely Growing Mode (PGM) feature at the centre of the spectrum which persists at varying amplitudes throughout the SPEAR heating, unlike observations made using the Troms??heating facility which is outside the polar cap. The presence of this feature is known to give rise to unreliable estimates of the electron temperature when incoherent scatter spectra are analysed using conventional analyses methods. The focus of this study is on an alternative estimation of the SPEAR-modified elec tron temperatures, which are obtained by applying a recently developed method that removes the PGM from ESR spectra before they are analysed. We present some initial results which highlights important differences between artificial heating experiments performed using SPEAR and those conducted at lower latitudes.