Variation of Ionospheric Shortwave Absorption of the Extraordinary Wave

Abstract

In this study, associating with the A‐H formulation, we have developed a comprehensive ionospheric absorption model by incorporating the latest version of geomagnetic model, the atmospheric and ionospheric model as the background. Based on the absorption model, the ionospheric stratification theory is utilized to explore the trend of the total absorption for extraordinary (X) wave with frequency and elevation angle. We found that the factor of local time has a greater impact on the trend of total absorption variation than other factors—solar activity, season, and latitude, attributing to the variation of electron collision frequency. During the two different local times (daytime and night), the trends of the total absorption have distinct differences. In the daytime, it is worth noting that the reflection heights and the peaks of the absorption coefficient both mainly occur in Layers D and E. Therefore, the non‐deviative absorption dominates the variation of the total absorption. On the other hand, the occurrence of Pedersen ray results in inflexion points arising in the curves of absorption versus frequency or elevation angle. Another interesting phenomenon is the dominant role of deviative absorption at night. At night, the reflection heights mainly occur in Layer F, and the absorption coefficient of Layer F begins to exceed the peak levels of Layers D and E when the frequency or elevation angle is larger than certain values. Hence, the total absorption will grow as a result of the increase in deviative absorption with the increase in reflection height and absorption coefficient.