Estimation of Wait’s Empirical D-Region Model Parameters Based on Standard IRI Model

Abstract

Wait’s 2-component ionospheric model is an appropriate tool for D-region modeling when it is investigated by Very Low Frequency (VLF) remote sensing technique. The ‘effective reflection height’ (h ^′) and ‘sharpness parameter’ (β) are the crucial parameters (called Wait’s parameters) of this model, which are related to log-linear altitude profile of model D-region electron density (N _e). In this article, we took the standard altitude profile of D-region electron density (N _e) under ambient solar conditions from ‘International Reference Ionosphere (IRI-2012)’ model and fit it with its Wait’s log-linear counterpart using Wait’s parameters as fitting parameters. The Wait’s parameters values corresponding to best fit gives a legitimate idea. We developed an automated computation mechanism to repeat this procedure under various ionospheric conditions to obtain the seasonal and diurnal variations of those parameters for different VLF propagation paths. The initial findings of our model are presented in this article.