How long do the effects of ionospheric heating last?
Since the ionosphere is, inherently, a turbulent medium that is being both “stirred up” and renewed by the sun, artificially induced effects are quickly obliterated. Depending on the height within the ionosphere where the effect is originally produced, these effects are no longer detectable after times ranging from less than a second to ten minutes. A good analogy to this process is dropping a stone into a fast moving stream. The ripples caused by the stone are very quickly lost in the rapidly moving water and, a little farther down the stream, are completely undetectable.
