Power Spectrum of Sporadic-E at Wilkes and Byrd Stations, Antarctica

Abstract

Chivers and Hargreaves¹ have reported the occurrence of quasi-periodic variations in the time series of high-frequency radiowave absorption at high-latitude conjugate locations. The absorption is of the type known as ‘auroral zone absorption’ (Type II) which is thought to result from ionization in the upper D-region produced by keV energy electrons dumped from, or freshly accelerated in, the outer Van Allen region of the magnetosphere. We report here periodic variations of the ionospheric sporadic-E layer in Antarctica with similar frequency and latitude characteristics. These results may have considerable importance in suggesting a theory of high-latitude sporadic-E.