Spectra of high energy electron precipitation and atmospheric ionization rates retrieval from balloon measurements

Irina Mironova; Galina Bazilevskaya; Gennady Kovaltsov; Anton Artamonov; Eugene Rozanov; Alexander Mishev; Vladimir Makhmutov; Arseniy Karagodin; Ksenia Golubenko

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.048

Spectra of high energy electron precipitation and atmospheric ionization rates retrieval from balloon measurements

Sci Total Environ. 2019 Nov 25:693:133242. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.048. Epub 2019 Jul 19.

Authors

Irina Mironova¹, Galina Bazilevskaya², Gennady Kovaltsov³, Anton Artamonov⁴, Eugene Rozanov⁵, Alexander Mishev⁶, Vladimir Makhmutov⁷, Arseniy Karagodin⁸, Ksenia Golubenko⁹

Affiliations

¹ St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia. Electronic address: i.a.mironova@spbu.ru.
² Lebedev Physical Institute, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia. Electronic address: bazilevskayaga@lebedev.ru.
³ Ioffe Physical -Technical Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia.
⁴ Research Institute for Space Medicine Federal Research Clinical Center of Federal Biomedical Agency of Russia, Moscow, Russia.
⁵ PMOD/WRC and IAC ETHZ, Davos Dorf, Switzerland; Western Department of Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Waves Propagation, Russian Academy of Sciences, Kaliningrad, Russia. Electronic address: eugene.rozanov@pmodwrc.ch.
⁶ Space Climate Research Unit, University of Oulu, Finland; Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory, Oulu, Finland. Electronic address: alexander.mishev@oulu.fi.
⁷ Lebedev Physical Institute, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia. Electronic address: makhmutv@lebedev.ru.
⁸ St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia.
⁹ St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia. Electronic address: golubksen@yandex.ru.

PMID: 31634991
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.048

Abstract

The bremsstrahlung from high and relativistic energy electron precipitation (HEEP) measured with balloon based instruments provides information on energy spectra and fluence of the precipitating energetic electrons allowing calculations of the atmospheric ionization. HEEP from the outer radiation belt at the subauroral region causes an increase in the ionization rates down to about 20 km altitudes. We study the variability in the ionization rate using the balloon observations of secondary bremsstrahlung initiated by HEEP. For the first time the changes of atmospheric ionization rates on an hourly and minute time scale at different altitudes was retrieved from balloon observations. These new highlights are important for atmospheric electricity that is sensitive to the local condition in the atmosphere including the local ionization rate.

Keywords: Balloon observations; Electron spectra and ionization rates; High and relativistic energy electron precipitation (HEEP); Polar atmosphere.