Radio imaging of layers and investigation of internal atmospheric waves by high-stable signals of navigational satellites

  1. Kotelnikov Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics RAS

Under the condition of local spherical symmetry in the atmosphere an essential connection between the
eikonal acceleration and intensity of radio waves was established. This connection is similar to the well known
classical dynamics equation. Application of this relationship to the analysis of experimental data obtained by
CHAMP (Germany) and FORMOSAT-3 (Taiwan - USA) satellites revealed that the second derivative of the
eikonal with respect to time (the eikonal acceleration or the derivative of the Doppler shift on time), the Doppler
shift and the intensity of radiowaves are the main parameters needed for identification and radio imaging of
atmospheric and ionospheric layers. Measurements of temporal evolution of the Dopler shift give a possibility to
study the vertical structure of the spherical symmetric atmosphere. Analysis of connected variations of eikonal
acceleration and intensity of radio waves gives a possibility to identify the atmospheric and ionospheric layers
and to determine independently the contribution of small-scale irregularities and turbulence in the amplitude
and phase variations of radio waves. Using the elaborated criterion it is possible to reveal the belonging of a layer
to atmospheric and /or ionospheric wave from the measurements of individual vertical profile of temperature
and/or density of atmospheric air. Application of the developed eikonal/acceleration technique to the analysis of
radio occultation data obtained during the CHAMP and FORMOSAT-3 mission allows us to obtain the seasonal
and geographical distributions of the internal wave activity at different altitudes in the atmosphere in global
scale. These results may have general importance for the analysis of data obtained in other communication
links (e.g. in the satellite-Earth communication link), and for investigation of the layered and wave structures
in planetary atmospheres and ionospheres.