• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• 제35권3호
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• pp.143-149
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• 2018

The ionosphere has been monitored by ionosondes for over five decades since the 1960s in Korea. An ionosonde typically produces an ionogram that displays radio echoes in the frequency-range plane. The trace of echoes in the plane can be read either manually or automatically to derive useful ionospheric parameters such as foF2 (peak frequency of the F2 layer) and hmF2 (peak height of the F2 layer). Monitoring of the ionosphere should be routinely performed in a given time cadence, and thus, automatic scaling of an ionogram is generally executed to obtain ionospheric parameters. However, an auto-scaling program can generate undesirable results that significantly misrepresent the ionosphere. In order to verify the degree of misrepresentation by an auto-scaling program, we performed manual scaling of all 35,136 ionograms measured at Jeju ($33.43^{\circ}N$, $126.30^{\circ}E$) throughout 2012. We compared our manually scaled parameters (foF2 and hmF2) with auto-scaled parameters that were obtained via the ARTIST5002 program. We classified five cases in terms of the erroneous scaling performed by the program. The results of the comparison indicate that the average differences with respect to foF2 and hmF2 between the two methods approximately correspond to 0.03 MHz and 4.1 km, respectively with corresponding standard deviations of 0.12 MHz and 9.58 km. Overall, 36 % of the auto-scaled results differ from the manually scaled results by the first decimal number. Therefore, future studies should be aware of the quality of auto-scaled parameters obtained via ARTIST5002. Hence, the results of the study recommend the use of manually scaled parameters (if available) for any serious applications.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• 제30권4호
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• pp.223-230
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• 2013

Sudden enhancements of daytime NmF2 appeared in Anyang ionosonde data during summer seasons in 2006-2007. In order to investigate the causes of this unusual enhancement, we compared Anyang NmF2's with the total electron contents (GPS TECs) observed at Daejeon, and also with ionosonde data at at mid-latitude stations. First, we found no similar increase in Daejeon GPS TEC when the sudden enhancements of Anyang NmF2 occurred. Second, we investigated NmF2's observed at other ionosonde stations that use the same ionosonde model and auto-scaling program as the Anyang ionosonde. We found similar enhancements of NmF2 at these ionosonde stations. Moreover, the analysis of ionograms from Athens and Rome showed that there were sporadic-E layers with high electron density during the enhancements in NmF2. The auto-scaling program (ARTIST 4.5) used seems to recognize sporadic-E layer echoes as a F2 layer trace, resulting in the erroneous critical frequency of F2 layer (foF2). Other versions of the ARTIST scaling program also seem to produce similar erroneous results. Therefore we conclude that the sudden enhancements of NmF2 in Anyang data were due to the misrecognition of sporadic-E echoes as a F-layer by the auto-scaling program. We also noticed that although the scaling program flagged confidence level (C-level) of an ionogram as uncertain when a sporadic-E layer occurs, it still automatically computed erroneous foF2's. Therefore one should check the confidence level before using long term ionosonde data that were produced by an auto-scaling program.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• 제14권2호
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• pp.269-274
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• 1997

Langmuir probe was housed in the sounding rocket to test the probe's performance and to find the environmental parameters at the F layer of the ionosphere. The gold plated cylindrical probe had a length of 14㎝ and a diameter of 0.096 ㎝. The applied voltage to the probe consisted of 0.9 sec fixed positive bias followed by 0.1 sec of down/up sweep. This ensured that the probe swept through the probe's current-voltage characteristic at least once during 1 second quiescent periods enabling the electron temperature to be measured during the undisturbed times of the flight. The experimental results showed good agreement of the temperature distribution with IRI model at the lower F layer. In the upper layer, the experimental temperatures were 100-200K lower than the IRI model's because of the different geomagnetic conditions: averaged conditions were used in IRI model and specific conditions were reflected in the experiment.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• 제34권4호
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• pp.251-256
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• 2017

The electric coupling between the lithosphere and the ionosphere is examined. The electric field is considered as a timevarying irregular vertical Coulomb field presumably produced on the Earth's surface before an earthquake within its epicentral zone by some micro-processes in the lithosphere. It is shown that the Fourier component of this electric field with a frequency of 500 Hz and a horizontal scale-size of 100 km produces in the nighttime ionosphere of high and middle latitudes a transverse electric field with a magnitude of ~20 mV/m if the peak value of the amplitude of this Fourier component is just 30 V/m. The time-varying vertical Coulomb field with a frequency of 500 Hz penetrates from the ground into the ionosphere by a factor of ${\sim}7{\times}10^5$ more efficient than a time independent vertical electrostatic field of the same scale size. The transverse electric field with amplitude of 20 mV/m will cause perturbations in the nighttime F region electron density through heating the F region plasma resulting in a reduction of the downward plasma flux from the protonosphere and an excitation of acoustic gravity waves.

• 천문학논총
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• 제15권spc2호
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• pp.21-25
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• 2000

The ionosphere, the atmosphere of the earth ionized by solar radiations, has been strongly varied with solar activity. The ionosphere varies with the solar cycle, the seasons, the latitudes and during any given day. Radio wave propagation through or in the ionosphere is affected by ionospheric condition so that one needs to consider its effects on operating communication systems normally. For examples, sporadic E may form at any time. It occurs at altitudes between 90 to 140 km (in the E region), and may be spread over a large area or be confined to a small region. Sometimes the sporadic E layer works as a mirror so that the communication signal does not reach the receiver. And radiation from the Sun during large solar flares causes increased ionization in the D region which results in greater absorption of HF radio waves. This phenomenon is called short wave fade-outs. If the flare is large enough, the whole of the HF spectrum can be rendered unusable for a period of time. Due to events on the Sun, sometimes the Earth's magnetic field becomes disturbed. The geomagnetic field and the ionosphere are linked in complex ways and a disturbance in the geomagnetic field can often cause a disturbance in the F region of the ionosphere. An enhancement will not usually concern the HF communicator, but the depression may cause frequencies normally used for communication to be too high with the result that the wave penetrates the ionosphere. Ionospheric storms can occur throughout the solar cycle and are related to coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and coronal holes on the Sun. Except the above mentioned phenomena, there are a lot of things to affect the radio communication. Nowadays, radio technique for probing the terrestrial ionosphere has a tendency to use satellite system such as GPS. To get more accurate information about the variation of the ionospheric electron density, a TEC measurement system is necessary so RRL will operate the system in the near future.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• 제25권1호
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• pp.33-42
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• 2008

행성간 자기장(Interplanetary Magnetic Field)이 남쪽방향으로 전환되면서 발생된 2003년 자기폭풍 동안 한반도 상공 전리층의 총 전자수 함유량(Total Electron Content, TEC) 변화에 대해 알아보았다. 남쪽방향의 행성간 자기장과 지구 자기장의 상호작용에 의해 고위도에서 유도된 전기장과 저위도 전리층으로 전파된 전기장이 저위도 지역의 TEC 증가와 관련 있는 것으로 생각된다. 데이터 분석결과 2003년 6월 16일에 발생한 이벤트 동안에는 낮 지역 TEC 값이 약 15% 증가하였다. F2층의 최대 높이를 나타내는 hmF2는 300km 까지 상승되었으며, 수직방향 $E{\times}B$ 표류운동은 아랫방향으로 나타났다. 이것은 남쪽방향의 행성간 자기장 동안 고위도 지역으로 유입된 에너지에 의해 발생한 전리층의 교란된 다이나모 전기장이 TEC을 증가시킨 것으로 추정된다. 그러나 11월 20일에 발생한 이벤트 동안에는 전리층으로 전파된 서쪽방향 전기장에 의해 밤 지역 TEC 갈이 약 10% 증가한 것으로 보여 진다. 행성간 자기장이 남쪽방향으로 전환됨과 동시에 hmF2 높이는 200km까지 감소되었으며, 아랫방향 $E{\times}B$ 표류운동이 나타났다. 또한 행성간 전기장 y성분과 수직방향 TEC 값이 거의 비슷하게 변화하는 것을 볼 수 있었다. 이러한 결과들은 서로 다른 원인에 의해 발생하였지만 전리층의 교란된 전기장이 한반도 상공의 순간적인 TEC 값 증가에 중요한 요인으로 작용함을 보여 준다.