ИСТИНА

We have collected about 1000 cases of simultaneous ionospheric observations conducted by Irkutsk incoherent scatter radar (IISR) and COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 near IISR location for the 2006-2011 period. The main topic of the paper is a comparative analysis of electron density vertical profiles obtained with COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3, IISR, Irkutsk ionosonde and predicted by IRI model. The analysis is expected to be useful for the following tasks. (1) Mutual calibration of difierent methods of ionospheric sounding (incoherent scatter method, radiooccultation technique and vertical sounding in our case). (2) Studying ionospheric spatial inhomogeneity using the difierences between electron density profiles obtained with difierent tools. (3) Testing IRI model prediction of bottomside/topside electron density after assimilation of ionosonde peak electron density and the peak height into the model.