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Proceedings with Extended Abstracts (single PDF file) - Radio ...

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Figure 1. Period-time amplitude wavelet spectrograms for the mean hourly foEs time seriesseen simultaneously in all eight ionosonde stations. All stations see a dominant 7-daymodulation during the 2 nd half of August and into September 1993.The observation of the 7-day PW periodicity in foEs over a large latitudinal zone, suggestedan alternative way for computing PW parameters, like the zonal wavenumber and thepropagation properties of the wave. By using 3 independent methods for analysis (for detailssee Paper A) we calculated a 7-day period westward propagating S = 1 wave <strong>with</strong> a zonalphase velocity near 30 m/s which is in good agreement <strong>with</strong> the results of MLT neutral winddata analysis published elsewhere. The present findings provided the first direct evidence,proving that PW play an important role in the physics of midlatitude sporadic E layers.3. Planetary Wave Influence on Sporadic E via Modulation of Atmospheric TidesIn Paper B the investigation of the PW-E s relationship was carried one step further by meansof correlating concurrent mesospheric neutral winds and foEs data from neighboringlocations, in order to understand the physical mechanism behind the PW- E s interaction. Theneutral wind data were hourly means of zonal and meridional winds measured by themedium frequency radar in Saskatoon, Canada (52 o N, 107 o W), and the meteor wind radar inSheffield, UK (52 o N, 2 o W). The wind measurements were compared <strong>with</strong> available foEsobservations made <strong>with</strong> ionosondes located as near to the radars as possible, that is, we usedBoulder, Colorado (40 o N, 105 o W) foEs data for the American sector (Saskatoon), andLannion , France (49 o N, 3 o W) data for the West European sector (Sheffield).For the analysis we have used wavelet transform, digital filtering, and corelloperiodogrampower spectral analysis techniques (for details see Paper B). The wavelet spectrograms of thewind data verified that a 7-day PW dominated the spectrum from about day 235 to 265,having amplitudes near 16 m/s for UK and 10-12 m/s for Saskatoon. The Saskatoon recordsshow that above 97 km the PW amplitude tends to decrease <strong>with</strong> altitude. As discussed in theprevious section the same 7-day periodicity was also present concurrently in the sporadic Ecritical frequency foEs for both stations in Boulder and Lannion.Next, the 7-day (PW) periodicities seen in the meridional wind were compared directly <strong>with</strong>those in foEs keeping in mind of course that these variations were measured at differentaltitude. Based on a detailed analysis (see Paper B) we concluded that for the strong PWevent under consideration there was no convincing evidence in favor of a direct PW role onE s generation. This pointed to the possibility for an indirect PW role, probably through themodulation of atmospheric tides. We arrived at this option because of the nonlinear165

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