Sporadic‐E Formation by Wind Shear, Comparison Between Observation and Theory

A comparison is made between observation and theory of simultaneously observed wind shear and electron density in the lower ionosphere. The observation was done by K‐8–16 rocket flown from Kagoshima Space Center, Japan. The method of characteristics for time‐dependent solution of the equation of continuity, which is a partial differential equation of the first order, was used. The calculation shows a remarkable consistency between the observation and the theory even in details. The result strongly supports the wind‐shear theory for sporadic‐ E formation. The solution suggests that the effective recombination rate is 10 −8 cm 3 sec −1 as found from other ionospheric observations.