2004 Incoherent Scatter Coordinated Observation Days

2004 Incoherent Scatter Coordinated Observation Days
URSI-ISWG

In the following table, column 2 gives the start and end date of the experiment, column 3 gives the day of the week of the start of the experiment, column 4 is the length of the experiment and column 5 shows the date of the new moon.

Incoherent Scatter Coordinated Observation Days should start at 1300UT on the first day indicated (to ensure that all radars are operating correctly by 1600UT) and end at 1600UT on the last day indicated. However, radars are encouraged to start as early as possible on the first day where operational considerations allow.

2004 Incoherent Scatter Coordinated Observation Days
Month	Observation dates	Day	Observation length (days)	New Moon	Notes
January				21
February				20
March	8-13 or 29-April 2	Monday	5	20	M-I Coupling: Storm effects (One of the 5-day periods listed, selected one month in advance) and CPEA
April	or 19-23			19	M-I Coupling: Storm effects (continued) and CPEA
May	17-20	Monday	3	19	Synoptic: wide F-region coverage (with topside and temperatures)
June	14-18	Monday	4	17	LTCS -- MST
July				17
August				16
September	13-16	Monday	3	14	Synoptic: wide F-region coverage (with some topside or E-region)
October				14
November	9-13	Tuesday	4	12	LTCS -- C/NOFS
December	6-9	Monday	3	12	Synoptic: wide F-region coverage (with some topside or E-region)
Total			22 (target: 21)
Last updated: Tuesday, 2003 June 18, 12:15 GMT

Send comments, questions and proposals for the World Day schedule to Wes Swartz at wes@ece.cornell.edu.

World Day Facts

Establishing "World Day" schedules is one of the activities of the URSI ISWG (Incoherent Scatter Working Group) and the CEDAR meeting has provided a timely forum for scheduling coordinated experiments at the Upper Atmospheric Facilities (links to UAFs for the next calendar year. These schedules are then published as part of the International Geophysical Calendar. Here are some of the facts about world days:

World Days (WD) provide for coordinated operations of two or more of the incoherent scatter radars (ISRs) for some common scientific objective. (Experiments that require only 1 should be set up separately and directly with those in charge of that UAF.)
World Days should be scattered throughout the calendar year.
World Day data is to be promptly submitted to the CEDAR database and/or made available through other online databases as appropriate.
The number of World Days per year is limited to about 21 twenty-four hour days.

Include the following in any request for World Day experiments:

Outline the science objectives.
Outline the measurements required to meet the science objectives (including parameters to be measured, altitude range, ant time resolution, with the dates or seasons, number of days or hours, phase of the moon, etc.).
Include which UAFs and which instruments are to be included.
Include the radar operating modes for each ISR.
Name a point person for coordinating the details of the experiments.

Notes on World Day observations proposed for 2004

LTCS (Lower Thermosphere Coupling Study): Tidal Structures in Winds and Temperatures During the Declining Phase of Solar Activity

After 15 years of collecting ISR data in the lower thermosphere under the LTCS (Lower Thermosphere Coupling Study) program, the basic structure of tides is relatively well understood, and now new efforts are required to understand the sources of tidal variability. The very large variability of tidal amplitudes is perhaps the most striking single property of atmospheric tides. Possible sources for this variability include non-migrating tides, planetary waves, and geomagnetic influences. Progress in understanding the contributions from each of these sources is conditioned on wind and temperature data from altitudes between 100 and ~130-140 km. With the WINDII instrument (on board the UARS satellite) being phased out during the past few years and with the TIDI instrument (on board of TIMED satellite) having difficulties with measurements above ~100 km (perhaps now corrected), it is crucial to maintain the ISR observational program started by the LTCS campaigns in 1987. The program requires synoptic lower thermospheric observations during two intervals of 4-5 days each per year. We plan to coordinate the analysis of this data with SABER temperature data, TIDI mesospheric winds, and MF/meteor radar winds.
Contact: Larisa P. Goncharenko

M-I Coupling (Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling): Storm and Substorm Effects on the Middle- and Low-Latitude Ionosphere

Magnetic storms and substorms are fundamental disturbances in the magnetosphere and can significantly increase, or decrease ionopheric electron densities (termed positive or negative storms, repectively). Electric fields originating in the magnetosphere can penetrate to the low-latitude ionosphere resulting in vertical motions that restructure the F-region density profiles due to the height dependence of the recombination rate. Substorm electric fields can change F-peak densities by 20-30% within one hour and correspondingly large changes also occur in TEC at low latitudes. There are a number of outstanding problems with the effects of storms and substorms on the middle- and low-latitude ionosphere that remain unsolved.

How much do magnetic storms affect the low-latitude ionosphere?
How significant are the changes in TEC and F-region densities that result from penetrating magnetospheric substorm electric fields?
How are changes in the low-latitude ionosphere coupled with the variations in the magnetosphere and solar wind?
What process are responsible for the ionospheric electron density disturbances?
How do the disturbances in the electron density profiles and TEC vary with longitude and latitude?
What are the atmospheric and dynamic processes at low latitudes during magnetic storms?

Radar chain measurements of the ionospheric plasma parameters (velocity, density, and temperature) are needed to solve, or partially solve, these problems. A magnetic storm generally lasts for 2-3 days. Periodic substorms often occur over a time interval of 10-30 hours during storms. Substorms evolve over 2-3 hours while penetration elecric fields occur with times scales on the order of 30 minutes. The radar chain experiments should therefore last 5-7 days to include some quiet times before and after the storm, and have a reasonably high time resolution of 5-15 minutes.
Contact: Chaosong Huang

Synoptic

These synoptic experiments are intended to emphasize wide coverage of the F-region, with some augmented coverage of the topside or E-region to fill in areas of the data bases that have relatively little data. The emphasis should be on broad latitudinal coverage of the F region.
Contact: Wes Swartz

C/NOFS Communications / Navigation Outage Forecasting System

The primary purpose of C/NOFS is to forecast the presence of ionospheric irregularities that adversely impact communication and navigation systems through
(1) improved understanding of the physical processes active in the background ionosphere and thermosphere in which plasma instabilities grow;
(2) the identification of those mechanisms that trigger or quench the plasma irregularities responsible for signal degradation; and
(3) determining how the plasma irregularities affect the propagation of electro-magnetic waves.
A satellite, scheduled for launch in January 2004 into a low inclination (13°), elliptical (~ 400 x 700 km) orbit will be solely dedicated to the C/NOFS objectives. It will be equipped with sensors that measure ambient and fluctuating electron densities, ion and electron temperatures, AC and DC electric fields, magnetic fields, neutral winds, ionospheric scintillations, and electron content along the lines of sight between C/NOFS and the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite constellation. Complementary ground-based measurements including the Jicamarca and Altair radars are also critical to the success of the mission. Requests for additional UAF radar time beyond the currently scheduled World Days are to be made directly to the respective observatory staffs. Contacts: Odile de La Bedaujardiere, David Hysell, Wes Swartz

CPEA Coupling Processes in the Equatorial Atmosphere

This is a new initiative for studing the coupling of dynamical coupling processes in the equatorial atmosphere from the troposphere up through the theromosphere and ionosphere centered around the Indonesian Equatorial Atmospheric Radar (EAR). Oportunities for collaborations will initally focus on the March-April 2004 campain period. See highlights.
Contacts:Shoichiro Fukao, Project Leader, Sunanda Basu, Janet Kozyra

MST

Coordinated D- and E-region campaigns are proposed where the ISR's and supporting instruments focus on their lower altitude capabilities. JRO would use their high resolution MST mode, while Arecibo would use a dual mode of D- and E-region drifts (with accompanying lidar & imaging measurements). The main interest would be in obtaining gravity wave momentum fluxes. Minimum requirements would be winds with a time resolution of one or two minutes and a height resolution 450 meters or better. It may be possible to collect the lower atmospheric winds at Jicamarca with little or no adverse impact to the upper atmospheric/ionospheric measurements and may tie nicely in with the LTCS World Day periods.
Contacts: Jorge L. Chau, Erhan Kudeki, Dennis Riggin.