Identification

Title

Nonlinear interaction of the lunar tide M2 and the diurnal variation of electron density in the ionosphere

Abstract

Ground‐based observations of time series of ionospheric electron density indicated the existence of spectral components at the periods of the lunar tidal constituents (25.82 hr) and (8.18 hr). It was unclear whether these variations are excited by and tides propagating from the surface into the ionosphere or if the variations are due to a nonlinear interaction of the semidiurnal lunar tide with the diurnal variation of ionization (). A simulation was performed with the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research thermosphere‐ionosphere‐mesosphere electrodynamics general circulation model (TIME‐GCM). In the stratosphere at the lower boundary of TIME‐GCM, the signal of the atmospheric semidiurnal lunar tide is introduced. The TIME‐GCM simulation of January–February 2009 shows that the electron density variation in the equatorial region contains not only a spectral component of the period but also spectral components of the and periods fulfilling the nonlinear interaction resonance condition for the frequencies of the wave triads ( +  = ) and ( −  = ). The nonlinear interaction resonance condition of the zonal wavenumbers of these wave triads is also fulfilled. Moreover, the relevance of nonlinear interaction of and is supported by observations of total electron content (TEC). The amplitude spectrum of the long‐term time series of TEC shows that the quasi‐diurnal and terdiurnal lunar spectral lines precisely occur at the frequencies of − and  + .

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7mw2nh1

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2025-02-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

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Use constraints

<span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;font-style:normal;" data-sheets-root="1">Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</span>

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact