EISCAT's ionospheric Heating facility
http://www.mps.mpg.de/en/projekte/heating/Langmt_1.html
The effect of high power HF waves from EISCAT's newly acquired ionospheric Heating facility can clrearly be > seen on the back scattered power from the F-region measured with the VHF radar during the operation of CP-7-E on 19 May 1993. The dark red lines shows strongly enhanced back scatter at a height of 213 km measured on one of the power profile channels, while the other colours show the electron density from 75 to 450. km for a half hour interval starting at 11 UT. The strong signal appears at the height where the 5.4 MHz HF waves from the Heating facility are reflected from the F-region, allowing an accurate calibration of the radar-derived densities during Common as well as Special Programmes. Understanding the physical mechanism behind such heater-enhanced signals is an active area of research as described further together with other results from the Heating facility.

Recent data showing of the heater-enhanced ion line (second panel) and plasma line (top panel) from an MPS experiment by Kohl and Rietveld are shown below
plasma and ion lines with 225m resolution .

© 2006, Max Planck Institute for
Solar System Research, Lindau		 Rietveld
21-05-1996