Annual Variations of the Upper Atmosphere: IPY Observations

Trevor David

Mentors: John Holt and Shunrong Zhang

IPY, the International Polar Year, is a large scientific programme focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic from March 2007 to March 2009, involving over 200 projects, with thousands of scientists from over 60 nations examining a wide range of physical, biological and social research topics. Space research during IPY focuses on space itself, particularly solar processes that impact Earth's outer atmosphere, on making measurements of distant space from polar regions, and on the use of satellite sensors in space to monitor polar conditions and processes.

Incoherent scatter radars (ISRs) are the most powerful ground-based instrument for probing the Earth's upper atmosphere. A few ISRs, in particular MIT Millstone Hill radar in Westford, Mass, Poker Flat radar in Alaska, EISCAT Svalbard radar in the Arctic, and Sondrestrom radar in Greenland, are participating in the IPY observation. A large amount of data has been available for science analysis. This project will address annual ionospheric variations observed during the first year of IPY when solar activity is at its extremely low level. Some of the proposed research topics include annual variations at different heights of the ionosphere for different geographic locations, effects of solar activity variability, global atmospheric circulation, etc.

Major Tasks

Annual ionospheric and thermospheric variations for Millstone Hill and for high latitude sites

  • Learn to use the tools (wiki, matlab, linux, ASG computers and printers)

  • Learn about incoherent scatter (ISR) observation and databases.

    1. ISR (see tutorial page on incoherent scatter radar measurements), in particular, Millstone Hill radar

    2. IPY and world wide ISRs (ESR, PFISR, Sondrestrom)

    3. Madrigal database (http://www.openmadrigal.org)

  • Learn about some basic ionospheric variations (climatology). The REU lecture series will give a starting point. See also Space Science Resources page.

    1. Diurnal variations

    2. Seasonal variations

    3. Solar cycle variations

    4. Annual variations

  • Generate datasets (gridded ISR data) from ESR, PFISR and Millstone Hill Radar.

    1. Download data from other ISR sites

    2. Learn about ISR data grid software.

    3. Produce gridded data for high latitudes with basic ISR parameters

    4. Produce gridded data for Millstoen Hill with basic ISR parameters plus neutral temperature, winds, and electric filds.

  • Generate empirical models of the ionosphere for data from IPY, i.e.,fit the data for diurnal and annual variations with controls of solar flux and magnetic activity.

  • Investigate seasonal and annual variations in various parameters for different sites

    1. Ne, Te, Ti and line-of sight velocity for all sites

    2. Neutral temperature and winds variations

    3. Compare different behaviors for hight latitudes and the mid-latitude.

Approximate Timeline

  • June 2, 2008 : Students Arrive

Progress and Result Reporting

References

A list of References

Materials

  1. Extracting madrigal data scripts here exeDataSearch

  2. sample matlab codes here annualplot.m

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