Collaborative Research: NSFGEO-NERC:Conjugate Experiment to Investigate Sources of High-Latitude Magnetic Perturbations in Coupled Solar Wind-Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Ground System

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This is a project that is jointly funded by the National Science Foundation’s Directorate of Geosciences (NSF/GEO) and the National Environment Research Council (UKRI/NERC) of the United Kingdom (UK) via the NSF/GEO-NERC Lead Agency Agreement. This Agreement allows a single joint US/UK proposal to be submitted and peer-reviewed by the Agency whose investigator has the largest proportion of the budget. Upon successful joint determination of an award, each Agency funds the proportion of the budget and the investigators associated with its own investigators and component of the work. This project is to (1) operate, maintain, and expand a high-latitude array of autonomous instruments to support research of the wider geospace research community into the sources of inter-hemispheric asymmetries, (2) conduct focused science investigations to develop understanding of the sources of high-latitude magnetic perturbations in the multi-scale, global, solar wind - magnetosphere – ionosphere – ground (SWMIG) system, including during the 2021 solar eclipse and (3) conduct education and outreach to facilitate broader access to polar research efforts. These objectives will be achieved through an unsurpassed network of closely-spaced magnetically-conjugate magnetometers in Antarctica and in the Northern Hemisphere near the 40 degree magnetic meridian, most of which have already been deployed. This project expands an existing Virginia Tech/Technical University of Denmark partnership to include the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Space Science Institute, and UCLA. Graduate and undergraduate students will be supported, including a special research program to engage students from minority-serving institutions.Measurements of surface magnetic field perturbations are important to remotely sense and characterize the SWMIG phenomena that affect technology – such as geomagnetically induced currents – and thereby to develop physical models and forecast space weather impacts. However, understanding the sources of magnetic perturbations in the coupled SWMIG system is challenging due to their simultaneous dependence on driving conditions, ionospheric conductivity and ground conductivity. We seek to address the following science questions, "How do magnetosphere-ionosphere current systems couple to high-latitude ground magnetic perturbations? What roles do current system spatial scale, inhomogeneous ionospheric conductivity, and inhomogeneous ground conductivity play?" By combining British Antarctic Survey, Technical University of Denmark, and NSF-supported magnetometers, a new combined array will provide unprecedented coverage throughout the auroral zone/cusp in both hemispheres simultaneously. These data enable novel experiments to isolate the respective contributions of driver spatial/temporal scale, ionospheric conductivity, and local ground conductivity in the generation of ground magnetic perturbations. This project includes field work in the Antarctic, supported by both the U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) and the BAS. USAP and BAS have agreed to support maintenance visits to receiver site locations and to support the retrograde of equipment at the end of the program. BAS and USAP will work collaboratively to deploy an additional instrument to a logistically feasible location that best serves the project. The USAP and BAS have agreed to support this program logistically, with the first field deployment year to be determined after the uncertainties related to the coronavirus pandemic are resolved.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.