ON THE ORIGIN OF LOW- AND MIDDLER-LATITUDE IONOSPHERIC TURBULENCE

Abstract

The paper is motivated by our recent results of observation on the satellites Cosmos-900, Aureol-3 and Intercosmos-24, which are presented in this issue (Molchanov et al.). We try to show that a drift mode leading to the ionospheric turbulence (IT) is sustained by wind of the neutral particles, that a source of the IT is energy flux from the atmospheric gravity waves (AGW) to the long scales of IT, and that IT develops to smaller scales as in the classic Kolmogorov's turbulence. Then the earthquake influence observed can be explained by redistribution of the AGW pumping during periods of seismic activity.