CEDAR: A Complement of Optical Instruments for the Polar Cap Observatory: Continued Support

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The investigators will deploy, maintain, and operate three co-located, high performance optical instruments at the Early Polar Cap Observatory at Resolute Bay in the Northwest Territories for three consecutive observing seasons. They will analyze the data from the instruments to systematically address a number of problems in mesospheric and thermospheric physics. The instruments are: A new Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) with multi-emission capability, for measurements of Doppler winds and temperatures; an all-sky camera (ASC) system with a bare CCD detector and programmable filter wheel; and a Spectral Airglow Temperature Imager (SATI) from the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute (KORDI) to provide rotational temperatures from OH and O2 emissions. The ASC and SATI are already installed on site. The FPI is operational in Boulder and will be deployed at Resolute in July 2003, replacing the original FPI, which made neutral wind measurements using only the OH emission. The new FPI will be able to measure 557.7 and 630 nanometer emissions as well, providing winds and temperatures at multiple altitudes. Specific research objectives are investigation of gravity and planetary wave characteristics, mesopause dynamics and energetics, lower thermospheric dynamics and energetics at high geomagnetic latitude; impact of high-latitude auroras on structure and dynamics; plasma drifts, patches and blobs; and ionosphere-magnetosphere coupling processes, including Joule heating. Data will be made available to the aeronomy community and the investigators will continue allocating community use of the instruments to support other experimental campaigns. Filter wheel positions in the FPI are available for use by other investigators. Support for other researchers through observational and analysis partnerships will be pursued. A significant international partnership is a key element of the research. Educational opportunities for field observational work by students has been an important aspect of prior work and will continue to be pursued through university partnerships.