Comparison of the first long-duration IS experiment measurements over Millstone Hill and EISCAT Svalbard radar with IRI2001 Original Research Article

The first long-duration incoherent scatter (IS) radar observations over Millstone Hill (42.6°N, 288.5°E) and EISCAT Svalbard radar (ESR, 78.15°N, 16.05°E) from October 4 to November 4, 2002 are compared with the newly updated version of the IRI model (IRI2001). The present study showed that: (1) For the peak parameters hmF2 and foF2, the IRI results are in good agreement with the observations over Millstone Hill, but there are large discrepancies over ESR. For the B parameters, the table option of IRI produces closer values to the observed ones with respect to the Gulyaeva’s option. (2) When the observed F2 peak parameters are used as input of IRI, the IRI model produces the reasonably results for the bottomside profiles during daytime over Millstone Hill, while it gives a lower bottomside density during nighttime over Millstone Hill and the whole day over ESR than what is observed experimentally. Moreover, IRI tends to overestimate the topside Ne profiles at both locations. (3) The Ti profiles of IRI can generally reproduce the observed values, whereas the IRI-produced Te profiles show large discrepancies with the observations. Overall comparative studies reveal that the agreement between the IRI predictions and experimental values is better over Millstone Hill than that over ESR.