The Sondrestrom Upper Atmospheric Research Facility: Research, Operation and Coordination

Sri International, Menlo Park CA

Investigators

Abstract

This is an award to continue management, operations, and scientific activities in support of the Sondrestrom upper atmosphere research facility located near Kangerlussuaq, on the west coast of Greenland. Activities include all technical aspects concerning the incoherent-scatter (IS) radar, the Rayleigh and resonance lidars, and the all-sky imager, and to provide science, service, education, and leadership of the facility. Other instruments at the site support solid earth, stratospheric, and environmental change research in addition to the physics of solar-terrestrial relationships. The facility management features evolutionary development with further implementation of state-of-the-art radar data acquisition and processing schemes that are becoming practicable with new technology, further advancements in lidar and all-sky imager capabilities, upgrades in telescience capabilities, and improvements to the facility infrastructure that will enable key instrument deployments in the future. To provide an environment that promotes education and training, an educational advisory board, consisting of a group of diversified, education research experts, will determine and develop the most effective way of formulating, implementing, communicating and disseminating information and data to public and educational institutions. Also, a new post-doctoral program will be established to train the future research professionals in the field, and the existing graduate student research experience program will be augmented to increase student involvement. To foster new ideas in upper atmospheric research, facility staff will advance instrumentation to promote scientific discovery, ensure data are of high research quality, and maintain expertise in the related sciences conducted at the facility. Areas of research include the pioneering effort to investigate the response and variability of the high latitude ionosphere from seconds to solar cycles, the exploration of the ionosphere's role in the coupled magnetosphere-ionosphere system, and the deciphering of the myriad processes occurring in the mesosphere/lower thermosphere-ionosphere region. The IS radar will be operated more than 1200 hours per year to respond to the evolving needs of the community, provide flexibility in radar operations to capture space weather events, and make more data available for retrospective analysis, To take advantage of these extensive observations, facility staff will focus on collaborative studies with other existing and planned high-latitude radars. This will pave the way to establishing a high-latitude IS radar consortium to optimize coordinated operations and encourage the exchange of scientific and technical developments among the radar facilities. A new data handling and processing strategy will be implemented to provide ready access to real-time data products, immediate analysis of 20 years of radar data, and assimilation of radar data into physics-based community models. The investigators will also maintain relationships with the Greenland Home Rule Government and Danish Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland to ensure effective management and operation of the facility.