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Modeling The Evolution Of Meso-Scale Ionospheric Irregularities At High Latitudes, Jan Josef Sojka, L. Zhu, M. David, Robert W. Schunk

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The modeling of ionospheric plasma density irregularities (ΔN/N) is a necessary first step towards forecasting ionospheric scintillation effects. This modeling challenge is difficult not only because the linear‐nonlinear saturation levels of instabilities are not completely understood but also because ΔN/N often evolves on time scales which are long compared to the characteristic time constants of the instability drivers. In this study, the linear 1‐D gradient drift instability (GDI) is used in a high latitude simulation of ΔN/N evolution. For the first time snapshots (maps) of ΔN/N are presented demonstrating that it is possible to use …