Solar-eclipse-induced perturbations at mid-latitude during the 21 August 2017 event

Adekoya, B. J. and Adebesin, B.O. and David, TW and Ikubanni, S.O. and Adebiyi, S.J. and Bolaji, O.S. and Chukwuma, V. (2019) Solar-eclipse-induced perturbations at mid-latitude during the 21 August 2017 event. Annales Geophysicae, 37 (2). pp. 171-182.

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Abstract

A study of the response of some ionospheric pa-rameters and their relationship in describing the behaviour ofionospheric mechanisms during the solar eclipse of 21 Au-gust 2017 is presented. Mid-latitude stations located alongthe eclipse path and with data available from the Global Iono-spheric radio Observatory (GIRO) database were selected.The percentage of obscuration at these stations ranges be-tween 63 % and 100 %. A decrease in electron density dur-ing the eclipse is attributed to a reduction in solar radia-tion and natural gas heating. The maximum magnitude ofthe eclipse consistently coincided with ahmF2increase andwith a lagged maximum decrease inNmF2at the stationsinvestigated. The results revealed that the horizontal neutralwind flow is as a consequence of the changes in the thermo-spheric and diffusion processes. The unusual increase anddecrease in the shape and thickness parameters during theeclipse period relative to the control days points to the per-turbation caused by the solar eclipse. The relationships of thebottomside ionosphere and theF2layer parameters with re-spect to the scale height are shown in the present work asviable parameters for probing the topside ionosphere duringthe eclipse. Furthermore, this study shows that in addition totraditional ways of analysing the thermospheric compositionand neutral wind flow, proper relation of standardizedNmF2andhmF2can be conveniently used to describe the mecha-nisms

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	Q Science > QC Physics
Depositing User:	Mr DIGITAL CONTENT CREATOR LMU
Date Deposited:	20 Sep 2019 10:35
Last Modified:	20 Sep 2019 10:35
URI:	https://eprints.lmu.edu.ng/id/eprint/2317

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