The seasonal distribution of sporadic E layers observed from radio occultation measurements and its relation with wind shear measured by TIMED/TIDI

Abstract By using the 2002–2016 dataset of COSMIC, CHAMP and GRACE radio occultation (RO) and TIMED/TIDI, we investigate the morphology of global sporadic E (E S ) layers and its relation with wind shear. The occurrence rate of E S layers depends on temporal and spatial variation. The occurrence rate of E S layers has a maximum at around 103 km in middle latitude regions in summer hemisphere. The results show that the global distribution of E S layers is relatively consistent with the wind shear distribution. The height-local time distribution of E S layers occurrences are primary modulated by diurnal and semidiurnal atmospheric tides. However, the distribution of E S layers occurrence rate cannot be explained completely according to the wind shear theory, especially at equatorial and auroral regions. More observations are required to further investigate the formation of E S layers and its relation with wind shear.