Auroral ionospheric E region parameters obtained from satellite- based far-ultraviolet and ground-based ionosonde observations – effects of proton precipitation

Knight, Harold K.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-39-105-2021

Articles | Volume 39, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-39-105-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-39-105-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 39, issue 1

Regular paper

|

28 Jan 2021

Regular paper |

| 28 Jan 2021

Auroral ionospheric E region parameters obtained from satellite- based far-ultraviolet and ground-based ionosonde observations – effects of proton precipitation

Harold K. Knight

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Final revised paper (published on 28 Jan 2021)
Preprint (discussion started on 19 Aug 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'review comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 15 Nov 2019
- AC1: 'reply to RC1', Harold Knight, 16 Nov 2019
  - RC2: 'Comments on relationship between the production rate of ion and electron density', Anonymous Referee #1, 19 Nov 2019
    - AC2: 'reply to RC2', Harold Knight, 19 Nov 2019
      - RC3: 'reply', Anonymous Referee #1, 21 Nov 2019
        
        AC4: 'later reply', Harold Knight, 01 Apr 2020
RC4: 'review comments', Anonymous Referee #2, 14 Mar 2020
- AC3: 'reply to RC4', Harold Knight, 17 Mar 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (17 Apr 2020) by Dalia Buresova

AR by Harold Knight on behalf of the Authors (29 May 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (26 Jun 2020) by Dalia Buresova

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (24 Nov 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Please see the attached commented pdf of the original manuscript for reference. My ultimate recommendation is for the manuscript to be accepted pending minor revisions. A summary of my review can be found below:

1) Overall, this study is a rather incremental advance with respect to the author's previous work on the topic, using the same ionosonde data, but nonetheless, I believe the results warrant publication.

I would like to see some commentary on the expected implications of these results in the context of models based on these FUV observations, such as the Zhang and Paxton [2008] model and their subsequent suggestion (and work) of including such a model in the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jastp.2008.03.008

2) The Poker Flat ISR has been operating nearly continuously since 2007, almost all of which with a high resolution alternative code mode that gets sufficient resolution in the E-Region for your purposes. Given the substantial challenges and data quality concerns that may arise using the ionosonde data, I am a bit disappointed that there was no effort to use the ISR data, especially given that this would alleviate the need for the manual interpretation of ionosonde data, which is somewhat prohibitive. I imagine a future study may do so, but that sounds like an adventure in stamp collecting rather than scientific progress...

3) Given the null result of your hypothesis, why have you not examined potential limitations in the manner in which NmE is being derived from the LBHS/LBHL data? Could the proton effect actually be there, but be countered by an issue in the FUV-derivation of NmE itself? I believe that shortcomings in the NmE estimation must be addressed in order to cover the loose ends.

4) Regarding Figure 2: The statistical spread about these fits is on the order of the span on the data. More samples are likely necessary in order to really draw conclusions from this plot...

5) Lines 435-436: Please provide a reference.

6) Please examine the GIRO rules of the road document and include the necessary acknowledgments for ionosonde operators that contribute to GIRO: https://ulcar.uml.edu/DIDBase/Acknowledgements.htm

Best practices are to contact operators about acknowledgment if they are not listed in the above list. For example, Tromso requires that authors acknowledge the following: "Tromsø ionosonde operations are funded in part by QinetiQ"

Referee Report: PDF

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (01 Dec 2020) by Dalia Buresova

AR by Harold Knight on behalf of the Authors (08 Dec 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (09 Dec 2020) by Dalia Buresova

AR by Harold Knight on behalf of the Authors (10 Dec 2020) Manuscript

Short summary

Comparisons were made of ground-based ionosonde (a type of radar) observations of the ionosphere and satellite-based observations of auroral far-ultraviolet emissions to determine whether a remote sensing algorithm for determining auroral ionospheric electron densities from far-ultraviolet emissions was biased by the presence of proton precipitation, and it was found that there was no such bias.