Upper Atmospheric and Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling Using the Kodiak SuperDARN Radar

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This award supports the operation and maintenance of the Kodiak, Alaska, SuperDARN radar and associated research using data from the network. SuperDARN is an international network of high frequency radars that measure the motion of ionized plasma in Earth's ionosphere. At high latitudes, the plasma motion is indicative of coupling processes between the solar wind, the magnetosphere, and the upper atmosphere. Operational tasks for the SuperDARN site at Kodiak include periodic maintenance visits to the site, software maintenance, development of control programs, updating the operating schedule, and monitoring the status of data transfers from the radar to the SuperDARN archive, maintenance of local computer systems to host the data, and support of users in the use and interpretation of the data. The research plan includes substorm studies, auroral electric fields, irregularity generation, neutral wind forcing by the ionospheric plasma, investigation of hemispheric conjugate phenomena, convection dynamics, and convection modeling. The study addresses some of the fundamental problems of space physics, and continued operation of the SuperDARN network advances understanding of the Earth's upper atmosphere, ionosphere, and magnetosphere, and the impact of solar disturbances on the Earth's plasma environment. Broader impacts include the maintenance of scientific infrastructure for the benefit of the scientific community. SuperDARN is widely used in the space physics and aeronomy community and each radar plays an essential role. Because it is an international network, SuperDARN fosters collaboration among member nations. There are currently at least ten nations that support SuperDARN work. It plays an important role in the space physics research programs in each of these nations. The cooperative scientific effort fostered under this program will also contribute to the education of the next generation of scientists.