This MRI project will establish a group of three mini observatories in northern Scandinavia to measure three-dimensional wind and temperature of the neutral atmosphere in a region between about 80 km to 600 km above sea level called thermosphere. This region is highly variable, influenced by changes in solar energy input from above and atmospheric disturbances from below. Understanding and predicting such variations (called Space Weather) is highly important for radio communication, satellite navigation and space exploration.
The underlying science drivers for this initiative are identified in numerous recent planning documents produced by the US and international Geospace and Space Weather research communities. Specific topics to be addressed include: coupling of the thermosphere and ionosphere to the magnetosphere above and to the neutral atmosphere below; the spatial and temporal structure of forcing due to this coupling; the spatial and temporal structure of the resulting thermospheric responses; long-term changes in the thermosphere; and system-level studies enabled by assimilation of distributed heterogeneous data sets. The project is also motivated by a timely opportunity for synergy with the revolutionary new EISCAT 3D incoherent-scatter radar system that is currently being constructed by the international community in the same region of northern Scandinavia. The two systems will together make a comprehensive measurement of both the neutral and ionized part of the atmosphere, providing much needed three-dimensional high-resolution data in the polar region, where the influence of solar radiation is especially strong, creating phenomena such as the aurora borealis (northern lights).
The instrument array will employ three small observatory enclosures constructed from insulated 20-foot shipping containers. Each observatory will house: 1. An all-sky imaging Fabry-Perot interferometer, which will map thermospheric winds and temperatures within a circular field-of-view around 1000-km in diameter. 2. A narrow-field zenith-pointed Fabry-Perot interferometer, dedicated to making high cadence measurements of thermospheric vertical winds directly above the observatory. 3. A multispectral all-sky camera equipped with narrow-band interference filters, monitoring auroral activity at multiple optical wavelengths. 4. A Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver monitoring the line-of-sight integral of ionospheric electron density between the observatory and each GNSS satellite, as well as phase scintillations induced into the satellite signals by space weather disturbances. 5. A three-component fluxgate magnetometer. All resulting data will be freely distributed online. Data latency will vary from minutes to at most 1-2 days.
The broader impacts of this project will include: Collaboration with the international EISCAT-3D project; construction of a pathfinder project to inform designs of subsequent expanded networks of ground-based instrumentation that can address coupling of thermospheric processes across all scales, from local to global; training of the next generation of space physics instrumentalists, with an emphasis on inclusion of under-represented groups; and strong collaborative support for the international space-weather community through unrestricted free and timely access to all real-time and archival data.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
