THE MAGNETIC CONTROL OF GLOBAL PATTERNS OF F-LAYER VERTICAL DRIFT CAUSED BY NEUTRAL WINDS.

Basic considerations to a study of F-layer modification by vertical drift from any postulated neutral atmospheric wind system are the effects of local magnetic inclination and declination upon the resulting F-layer vertical drift velocity. The effect of local magnetic inclination enters in the term sin I cos I contained in the expression for the vertical drift velocity Vz V sin I cos I, where V is the wind velocity in the horizontal plane. A global map with contours of sin I cos I is presented in the report which enables one to compare the effect of inclination in different regions. This map shows where inclination would either tend to null or to maximize F-layer vertical drift respectively. The global maps clearly show that vertical drift is often strongly nonsymmetric at magnetic conjugate locations. Finally, an understanding of F-layer structure and dynamics is particularly important in many radio propagation problems. Author