FIGURE 28 Periodic turbulent updrafts in the ionosphere over Japan may be seeded by internal waves and grow via the instability first described by Rip Perkins. Reproduced from Fukao et al. (1991) with permission of the American Geophysical Union.
In short, the ionosphere is a battleground affected by the lower atmosphere from below and by the solar wind, energetic solar photons, and particles from above. The latter need an entire treatise in their own right. Here we have tried to show some effects that come up from below. As we have seen, internal waves carry much of the atmospheric energy upward from below and, in tandem with electromagnetic effects, make the plasma blanket covering the Earth highly structured, sometimes turbulent, and always interesting in its scientific richness.
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