Effect of Ionospheric Variability on the Electron Energy Spectrum estimated from Incoherent Scatter Radar Measurements

Stalder, Oliver; Gustavsson, Björn; Virtanen, Ilkka

doi:10.5194/angeo-44-123-2026

Articles | Volume 44, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-44-123-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-44-123-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 44, issue 1

Regular paper

|

17 Feb 2026

Regular paper |

| 17 Feb 2026

Effect of Ionospheric Variability on the Electron Energy Spectrum estimated from Incoherent Scatter Radar Measurements

Oliver Stalder, Björn Gustavsson, and Ilkka Virtanen

Data sets

ELSPEC_recursive Björn Gustavsson et al. https://github.com/ostald/ELSPEC/tree/recursive

ELSPEC Ilkka Virtanen and Björn Gustavsson https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6644454

Model code and software

ostald/juliaIC: IonChem first release Oliver Stalder https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18631983

Short summary

The rapid changes in ion composition during auroral are dynamically modeled by integrating the coupled continuity equations for 15 ionospheric species. The effect of the ionospheric variation on the inversion of incoherent scatter radar (ISR) electron density profiles to differential energy spectra of precipitating electrons is studied. A systematic overestimation at high electron energies can be removed using a dynamic model. Comparisons are made with static and steady-state ionospheric models.