Location
Yosemite National Park
Start Date
2-10-2014 10:50 AM
End Date
2-10-2014 11:20 AM
Description
When the incoherent scatter radar (IRS) was installed at Chatanika, Fairbanks, Alaska in the fall of 1971, it opened up a door of magic. As soon as new results from a Chatanika experiment was published, they attracted attention in the science community engaged in the physics of the upper polar atmosphere and the aurora boralis. Time series of altitude profiles of parameters like electric fields and conductivities, electron densities and currents as well as ion composition and neutral winds, had been stronly desired for years by researchers who wanted to test out their models for the very dynamical processes that took place in the auroral ionosphere. We had seen a few rocket experiments presenting snapshots of electron density and ion composition profiles, but time series were outside reach. The observations by Chatanika radar were the first to meet these desires and gave the scientists new inspiration to submerge into the complex field of upper polar atmosphere dynamics where the whirling auroras stood out as evidences of dramatic electrodynamical processes unfolding in near space. Since then IRS's have been introduced to higher latitudes to probe the more central parts of the Polar Cap where the interactions between the solar wind and the upper atmosphere is more direct. In addition to presenting some of the most outstanding findings in the upper polar atmosphere on the basis of IRS observations, a demonstration of some of the most epoch braking signal processing and data handling methods that have evolved throug the last 40 years will be presented; such phased array systems, pulse coding techniques and fast data storage procedures. A presentation of the planned EISCAT_3D in Northern Scandinavia that will offer volumetric images of the polar upper atmosphere with time and spatial resolutions that never have been accomplished before will also be given.
IRS - The Ultimate Istrument for Upper Polar Atmosphere Research
Yosemite National Park
When the incoherent scatter radar (IRS) was installed at Chatanika, Fairbanks, Alaska in the fall of 1971, it opened up a door of magic. As soon as new results from a Chatanika experiment was published, they attracted attention in the science community engaged in the physics of the upper polar atmosphere and the aurora boralis. Time series of altitude profiles of parameters like electric fields and conductivities, electron densities and currents as well as ion composition and neutral winds, had been stronly desired for years by researchers who wanted to test out their models for the very dynamical processes that took place in the auroral ionosphere. We had seen a few rocket experiments presenting snapshots of electron density and ion composition profiles, but time series were outside reach. The observations by Chatanika radar were the first to meet these desires and gave the scientists new inspiration to submerge into the complex field of upper polar atmosphere dynamics where the whirling auroras stood out as evidences of dramatic electrodynamical processes unfolding in near space. Since then IRS's have been introduced to higher latitudes to probe the more central parts of the Polar Cap where the interactions between the solar wind and the upper atmosphere is more direct. In addition to presenting some of the most outstanding findings in the upper polar atmosphere on the basis of IRS observations, a demonstration of some of the most epoch braking signal processing and data handling methods that have evolved throug the last 40 years will be presented; such phased array systems, pulse coding techniques and fast data storage procedures. A presentation of the planned EISCAT_3D in Northern Scandinavia that will offer volumetric images of the polar upper atmosphere with time and spatial resolutions that never have been accomplished before will also be given.