The State of Art of the Investigation on the Greenhouse Effect in the Polar Ionosphere

Riassunto

[Testo disponibile solo in inglese]
Recently, the Italian research group of the Upper Atmosphere Physics Dept., at INGV of Rome, has investigated on the long-term behaviour of the ionosphere as possible indicator of the thermospheric cooling due to the enhancement of the greenhouse gases emission (Rishbeth, 1990). The available monthly medians/hourly values of the plasma frequency of the F2 ionospheric layer, foF2, from ionospheric stations in Antarctica and in the northern hemisphere at high latitude have been analysed by using different analytical approaches to express the experimental data as function of solar and magnetic activity. In this paper the main results obtained during the last three years are summarised, showing a general decreasing of foF2 over the last three solar cycles as predicted by the Rishbeth theory.