SRC-110

DOE/ER-10003-T2: Effects of Ionospheric Heating on Telecommunications

Commissioned by US DOE. Who paid for a study is recorded because it bears on how its conclusions should be read, not because it makes them wrong.

Published claims resting on this source

• CLM-0102 A 1979 field test found no heating effect on the two navigation systems tested, but did find cross-modulation on time-signal stations and on one AM radio station.
• CLM-0103 Solar flares during the same campaign disturbed the same navigation signals far more than any effect that could be put down to the heater, which was too small to detect.
• CLM-0137 In four major space solar power studies from 1978 to 2007, none put a number on how much of the beam's energy would be lost if the beam sets up fine stripes of uneven density in the upper atmosphere; they mention the concern but do not measure or calculate it.
• CLM-0139 Real measurements at the Arecibo Observatory in 1980, in the same physical regime relevant to space solar power beams, found electron density varying by about 2%, occasionally up to 4%, inside large patches of disturbance that formed during high-power radio heating; the authors could not say whether the heating caused them.
• CLM-0163 On the exact same navigation-radio circuits used to test simulated space-solar-power heating of the upper atmosphere, a single ordinary solar flare produced a signal disturbance several times larger than anything the simulated heating produced.
• CLM-1378 The 1981 report found online is by the same author about the same heating experiments, but it is not the 1979 memo the 1980 government report relied on. In it, the temperature figures are calculations, not measurements, so it cannot stand in for the missing measurement.
• CLM-1461 A 1981 computer model predicted that a space solar power beam would make electrons in the lower ionosphere two to three times hotter and change their number by up to half, and the study found that radio measurements during ground-based heater tests in Colorado broadly matched its model, though by day the heater could not reproduce the beam's full effect at the greater heights. A 1980 US government report said measurements during the Colorado tests showed the electrons' temperature changing while the heater was on, and that calculations by the same lead author matched another researcher's figure for how far such a heater can raise it; the memo behind that figure is not held, so whether it was measured cannot be checked.

Cite this