US-South America Workshop to Foster Space Weather Investigation using the LISN Observatory

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This U.S.- South America award will support a workshop to promote international scientific collaborations between researchers from South America and the United States in the Low Latitude Ionospheric Sensor Network (LISN) community. The workshop will be held in November 2011 at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in Sao Jose dos Campos in Brazil. The LISN community has installed over 40 GPS receivers and 5 magnetometers across the South American continent during the last few years. The success of the continuous operations of this network depends on the collaborations of the South American partners. The primary goal of the workshop is to motivate new members to learn about the LISN instrumentation and to engage them in scientific projects and campaigns. Research topics addressed at the workshop will include: (1) new instrumentation, their observable quantities, and analysis techniques; (2) physics of the day-to-day variability of the low-latitude ionosphere and a method for predicting equatorial spread F (ESF) initiation; and (3) space weather applications and the role of LISN on the development of an augmentation system in South America. The workshop will be organized by Dr. Cesar Valladares from Boston College with Drs. Eurico de Paula and Hisao Takahashi from INPE in Brazil, Dr. Jorge Chau from Jicarmarca Observatory in Peru, and Dr. Caludio Brunini from the University of La Plata in Argentina. The workshop will bring together leading researchers from the United States, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Columbia, Ecuador and Bolivia and provide unique opportunities for this community to initiate long-term collaborations. For the US, this project will create opportunities for students and early career scientists to participate in different phases of the instrument installation, development of data analysis software, and the usage of the resources offered by the new instruments that are operating in South America. Furthermore, it will provide an international research experience to U.S and South American graduate students and early-career researchers. This workshop is supported by the Americas Program in the Office of International Science and the Aeronomy Program in the Directorate of Geosciences at NSF, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and the Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) in Brazil.