The concentration of negative ions of oxygen and its combinations in the ionosphere

Summary There are some processes in the ionosphere which were or could be explained by means of negative ions, such as sunrise effects, echo duration anomalies of meteor train radar observations and others. Therefore the concentration of negative ions was computed in this paper for some electron density distributions in a stationary quasineutral model of the undisturbed ionosphere. Such an investigation seems necessary because in the last few years laboratory experiments and theoretical calculations give some improved values of attachment and detachment coefficients. The density of negative ions at 12 00 local time and at 00 00 local time in dependence on height was calculated. A discussion of these values shows that negative ions must be considered only in the lower ionosphere at most up to 130 km. This agrees well with the conclusions derived from the observations. By using the values derived in this paper it seems possible to explain some results of ionosphere measurements such as those concerning sunrise effects and others.Mitteilung Nr. 124.