The investigators will study the equatorial electrojet and Polar Mesospheric Summer Echoes (PMSE) using the Advanced Modular Incoherent Scatter Radar (AMISR) systems at Jicamarca, Peru, and Poker Flat, Alaska. The graduate student to be supported under this award spent a year helping with the calibration and validation of the AMISR system at Jicamarca. After the installation and initial engineering tests of this prototype system, it was used to make observations of the equatorial electrojet. The equatorial electrojet is a sheet of current flowing in the ionosphere around the earth at the magnetic equator. The plasma instabilities in the equatorial electrojet are still not well understood even after forty years of study by rockets and radars. By measuring electrojet properties using radars at Jicamarca at two different frequencies, the investigators will obtain new information about the spatial and temporal behavior of the irregularities. After gaining this experience, the investigators will apply that knowledge to the observations of PMSE using the full AMISR system at Poker Flat, Alaska. Although PMSE have been observed by many radar systems, the opportunity to use AMISR, with its unprecedented steering ability, will shed new light on the processes in the mesosphere that give rise to these echoes. The graduate student to be supported is from an underrepresented minority group, and his involvement continues a strong tradition at Cornell in encouraging young scientists from diverse backgrounds.
