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How do thermospheric disturbances generated by auroral processes interact with the neutral and ionized atmosphere?

Project leaders

Hitoshi Fujiwara (Japan) / Mike Kosch (UK)

Project members

A. Arulia (UK), N. Balan (UK), S. Bruinsma (France), M. Conde (USA), A. Coster (USA), M. Danielides (USA), Y. Deng (USA), P. Dyson (Australia), L. Goncharenko (USA), S. Kirkwood (Sweden), G. Lehmacher (USA), R. Liu (China), W. Singer (Germany), T. Liu (Taiwan), G. Lu (USA), A. Manson (Canada), M. Nicholls (USA), S. Oyama (Japan), A. Richmond (USA), Y. Sahai (Brazil), E. Talaat (USA), M. Taylor (USA), T. Tsugawa (Japan), Q. Wu (USA), H. Yang (China)

Project plan

1) Investigate the small scale (~50 km horizontal) thermospheric response to auroral energy input (e.g. Joule heating associated with auroral arcs) as a function of altitude in the E- and F-layers (120-300 km).

Perform simultaneous radar (ion flow) and optical (neutral flow) observations of the ionosphere/thermosphere. This can be done, for example, with EISCAT-KST and 3 Fabry-Perot Interferometers in Norway, EISCAT-ESR and a Scanning Doppler Imager on Svalbard, or PFISR and a Scanning Doppler Imager in Alaska.

2) Investigate the thermospheric coupling between small (~50 km), medium (~250 km) and large (>1000 km) spatial scales as a function of altitude in the E- and F-layers (120-300 km).

Use International Polar Year (IPY) data from the ESR, PFISR, EISCAT-KST, Sondrestromfjord and Millstone Hill radars as well as, where available, Fabry-Perot interformeter optical observations.

3) Goal: Model the global thermospheric effect from auroral energy input into the high-latitude thermosphere (e.g. O/N2 composition, positive or negative ionospheric disturbances).

Use satellite data from CHAMP (neutral mass density at ~400 km), GRACE (neutral mass density at ~500 km) and TIMED (e.g. global destributions of O/N2 from GUIV image data) to perform comparisons between the satellite data and various general circulation models (e.g. CTIP).

4) Investigate the occurrence of atmospheric wave activity and its characteristics (e.g. spatial scale, frequency, amplitude) during solar minimum as a function of altitude in the E- and F-layers (120-300 km) and latitude (e.g. polar cap versus auroral oval).

Use International Polar Year (IPY) data from the ESR, PFISR, EISCAT-KST, Sondrestromfjord and Millstone Hill radars.

Project activities

1) EFOLD campaign:

2-17 February 2010, E-region ion-neutral meso-scale coupling in the presence of aurora using EISCAT Svalbard Radar and Scanning Doppler Imager.

2) TRISTATIC campaign:

5-15 February 2010, F-region ion-neutral meso-scale coupling in the presence of aurora using the EISCAT UHF tristatic radar and 3 Fabry-Perot interferometers.

3) The Space Weather Application Center - Ionosphere (SWACI, http://swaciweb.dlr.de/):

SWACI generates every 5 minutes global TEC now-casts and European TEC maps with one hour prediction. The effects of wave activity and energy input into the ionosphere are being studied.