Ground‐based radar sounders are used to characterize the dynamics and chemistry of Earth's upper atmosphere by using measurements of ionospheric peak electron density (N_mF₂) and its associated altitude (h_mF₂). Continuous sounder observations of the E and F regions of the ionosphere have been carried out regularly at dozens of stations worldwide since the midtwentieth century. A deep understanding of short‐ and long‐term upper atmospheric variability depends on a fundamental understanding of these observational data. The manual analysis of historical analog (predigital age) ionograms to derive the plasma frequency profiles and the ionospheric parameters h_mF₂ and N_mF₂ is a tedious procedure and susceptible to human error. In order to better understand this human error, a study is conducted in which ionograms from vertical sounders are manually scaled by a team of ionospheric researchers. The results of the study are then used to estimate the variability of the hand‐scaled ionospheric parameters f_oF₂ and f_oE. Those results are then used to estimate the downstream impact on ionospheric models that use f_oF₂ and f_oE as input. The results demonstrate that there can be large variability in the manual scaling of f_oF₂ and f_maxE from vertical incidence ionograms. However, the participants did typically better than 5% uncertainty for benign ionograms. A long‐term analysis of h_mF₂ modeling exhibits low sensitivity to statistical errors imposed on f_oF₂ and f_oE, but a short‐term analysis showed that modeled h_mF₂, neutral winds, and electron densities can be very different when small adjustments are made to f_oF₂ and f_maxE.

中文翻译：

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对历史电离层数据的人为错误贡献的估计

地面雷达测深仪通过测量电离层峰值电子密度（N _m F ₂）及其相关的高度（h _m F ₂）来表征地球高层大气的动力学和化学性质。自20世纪中叶以来，已经在全球数十个站点定期对电离层E和F区进行了连续的更响亮的观测。对短期和长期高层大气变化的深入了解取决于对这些观测数据的基本了解。手动分析历史模拟（数位时代）电离图，以得出等离子体频率曲线和电离层参数h _m F ₂和N _m F ₂是一个繁琐的过程，容易出现人为错误。为了更好地理解这种人为错误，进行了一项研究，其中由电离层研究人员团队手动缩放垂直测深仪的电离图。然后将研究结果用于估算手工定标的电离层参数f _o F ₂和f _o E的变异性。然后将这些结果用于估计对使用f _o F ₂和f _o E的电离层模型的下游影响作为输入。结果表明，垂直入射电离图在手动缩放f _o F ₂和f _max E时可能存在较大的差异。但是，参与者对良性离子图的不确定性通常要好于5％。对h _m F ₂建模的长期分析显示出对施加于f _o F ₂和f _o E的统计误差的敏感性较低，但短期分析表明，对h _m F ₂建模的结果当对f _o F ₂和f _max E进行很小的调整时，中性风和电子密度可能会非常不同。