EISCAT observations and TRANSCAR simulation of the solar eclipse of August 1, 2008

Frederic Pitout (1) , P.-L. Blelly (2) , Aurelie Marchaudon (3)

1 LPG - Laboratoire de Planétologie de Grenoble
2 CESR - Centre d'étude spatiale des rayonnements
3 LPCE - Laboratoire de physique et chimie de l'environnement

On 1 August 2008, the footprint of the solar eclipse passed north east of the Svalbard archipelago, where the EISCAT Svalbard Radars (ESR) are installed. The radars measured a depletion in electron density in the low F-region of a factor ~10 and a decrease in temperature of about 1000K. Also, the VHF dish of the mainland EISCAT system measured a decrease in the same parameters, showing the influence of the penumbra and of a partial eclipse. We have modelled the response of the high-latitude ionosphere to a solar eclipse with the TRANSCAR code and used its new capability to model the response of the conjugated ionosphere in the southern hemisphere.

Frederic Pitout, P.-L. Blelly, Aurelie Marchaudon. EISCAT observations and TRANSCAR simulation of the solar eclipse of August 1, 2008. American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, Dec 2008, San Francisco, United States. ⟨insu-00361677⟩