Collaborative Research: The SuperDARN Upper Atmosphere Facility - Operations, Community Support, and Science from the Polar Cap to Mid-latitudes

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) is a network of HF radars that provide global-scale and continuous measurements of the high latitude ionosphere and upper atmosphere in both the northern (14 radars) and southern (7 radars) hemispheres. SuperDARN utilizes coherent radar backscatter techniques to track the ExB drift of ionospheric plasma. The observations can be combined to generate patterns of plasma circulation that express fundamental aspects of the coupling of energy from the solar wind into the magnetosphere-ionosphere-atmosphere system. Information on electric field dynamics and plasma structuring is routinely available on spatial scales of a few tens of kilometers and temporal scales of seconds. The radar data also generate information on the occurrence and characteristics of ionospheric irregularities, atmospheric gravity waves and TIDs, and neutral winds near the mesopause.SuperDARN is an international collaboration involving the funding agencies of a dozen countries. The SuperDARN Upper Atmosphere Facility (UAF) operates four of the radars and provides essential technical support to the collaboration in the areas of radar operating software, web data access, and data distribution. U.S. researchers gain access to the entire dataset through association with SuperDARN researchers and are supported with interpretive analysis and collaboration. Significant scientific findings have been reported in areas as diverse as ionospheric convection, M-I coupling, ULF pulsations, plasma structuring, and atmospheric tides and planetary waves.The project is a collaboration between Virginia Tech and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL). Virgina Tech maintains and upgrades the radars and explores technical innovation while JHU/APL oversees software and data distribution functions. The group at Virginia Tech is student-centered activity with an emphasis on education and training while JHU/APL provides key software and web services. The project research and data products take advantage of the recent expansion of the network to polar and mid-latitudes and the development of enabling technologies. The research program is directed towards an improved understanding of the coupling of energy from the solar wind to Earth's upper atmosphere and the impacts on the space environment.Earth is buffeted by the solar wind, which interacts in complicated ways with the geomagnetic field to produce large-scale plasma motions within the upper atmosphere. These motions are a key source of information on the coupling processes. SuperDARN is a system of HF radars that image these motions, producing large scale maps of the plasma circulation that are widely used by the research community for both research and applications. This project supports the operation of four radars and the roles performed by the groups at Virginia Tech and JHU/APL in the international SuperDARN collaboration. The overall research goal is to increase our understanding of disturbance effects in Earth space environment from the polar cap to mid-latitudes and to furnish critical measurements of conditions in the upper atmosphere to the U.S. research community. The project activities will also engage students in training for space science research and engineering.