European Incoherent Scatter Radar Facility (EISCAT) - UK Support

这项提案正在为一个由四人组成的小组寻求资金，他们都在参与其他项目，他们花部分时间与研究人员合作，使用位于斯堪的纳维亚北部的一种名为EISCAT的强大雷达系统，该系统负责高层大气和空间天气的研究。我们的目标是帮助英国研究人员从NERC为保持EISCAT设施运行而进行的财务投资中获得最大利益，帮助确保英国科学家能够有效地使用这些设施。作为对NERC投资的回报，英国科学家每年可以获得大约200小时的测量时间，他们可以用这些时间来进行他们自己的实验，以调查极地高层大气的特殊属性和空间天气过程的物理。这些针对用户的实验被称为特殊程序。此外，英国EISCAT用户还可以访问更多更通用的观测，称为公共计划，这些计划是代表整个国际社会实施的，并向所有EISCAT科学家提供。空间天气研究，即空间环境对地球的影响，自2010年以来一直是NERC任务的一部分。EISCAT是NERC投资的最重要的空间气象研究设施，它是英国研究人员在这一领域的重点。它还构成了一个类似的全球雷达网络的一部分，该网络研究我们的大气在短时间和长时间尺度上如何变化，以响应源于太阳和太阳风的变化。除了研究地球大气层的最外层，EISCAT还可以对流星、卫星、空间碎片、行星体等现象进行研究，甚至可以对低频射电天文进行研究。虽然EISCAT雷达具有很大的能力和灵活性，但它们的使用也非常复杂，数据很难解释。必须遵循特定的调度和操作程序，还需要进行一些培训以了解雷达是如何运行的。雷达产生的数据集也往往非常大，需要专门的软件对其进行分析，并将其转化为对高层大气参数的估计。EISCAT支持小组的成员已经使用这些雷达多年，并对它们足够熟悉，他们可以帮助可能没有相同知识水平的科学用户，使NERC对支持团队的投资具有成本效益。我们还为前往EISCAT进行实验的英国科学家提供有限的资金，我们讲授培训课程，参加公关和媒体活动，向人们介绍EISCAT雷达系统及其功能。在过去的十年里，我们一直积极参与帮助规划一种新型雷达系统，该系统最终将取代EISCAT的当前一代雷达。这个设施被称为EISCAT_3D，它基于一种被称为“相控阵”的设计原理，使用的是天线阵列，而不是可操纵的碟形天线。相控阵天线的使用，再加上模块化发射机、接收机系统和高性能计算的最新进展，现在使设计一种更强大、更高效、更灵活的雷达成为可能。部分得益于NERC 600万GB的投资，这个新的雷达项目刚刚进入建设阶段。英国支持小组需要继续密切参与这一项目，以确保新雷达系统的设计考虑到我们科学家的要求，理想情况下还应确保英国公司也能从这一新项目提供的一些机会中受益。

This proposal is seeking funding for a small group of four people, all of whom also work on other projects, who spend part of their time working with researchers using a powerful radar system in northern Scandinavia, called EISCAT, which undertakes research on the upper atmosphere and space weather. Our aim is to help UK researchers to get the maximum benefit from the financial investment that NERC makes to keep the EISCAT facilities operating, by helping to ensure that UK scientists can use the facilities effectively. In return for the money which NERC invests, UK scientists get access to about 200 hours of measurement time per year, which they can use to run their own experiments, to investigate particular properties of the polar upper atmosphere and the physics of space weather processes. These user-specific experiments are known as Special Programmes. In addition, UK EISCAT users also get access to a larger pool of more generic observations, called Common Programmes, which are carried out on behalf of the whole international community, and are made available to all EISCAT scientists. The study of space weather, the effect of the space environment on the Earth, has been part of NERC's remit since 2010. EISCAT is the most significant space weather research facility in which NERC invests and it acts as a focus for UK researchers in this area. It also forms part of a worldwide network of similar radars which study how our atmosphere is changing on short and long timescales, in response to changes originating in the Sun and solar wind. As well as studying the outermost part of the Earth's atmosphere, EISCAT can also carry out other kinds of research on phenomena such as meteors, satellites, space debris, planetary bodies and even do research into low-frequency radio astronomy.Although the EISCAT radars have a great deal of capability and flexibility, they can also be very complicated to use and their data can be hard to interpret. Particular procedures have to be followed for scheduling and operations and some training is needed to understand how the radar operates. The data sets produced by the radar are also often very large and special software is required to analyse them and turn them into estimates of parameters in the upper atmosphere. The members of the EISCAT support group have worked with these radars for many years and are sufficiently familiar with them that they can help scientific users who might not have the same level of knowledge, making NERC's investment in the support team cost effective. We also provide limited funding for UK scientists travelling to EISCAT to conduct experiments, and we lecture on training courses and take part in PR and media events to tell people about the EISCAT radar systems and what they can do.For the last decade, we have been heavily involved in helping to plan a new kind of radar system, which will eventually replace EISCAT's current generation of radars. This facility is called EISCAT_3D, and it is based on a design principle called the "phased array", using arrays of antennas, rather than steerable dishes. The use of phased antenna arrays, coupled with recent advances in modular transmitters, receiver systems and high-performance computing, now make it possible to design a much more powerful, efficient and flexible type of radar. Thanks partly to NERC's investment of £6M, this new radar project has just entered its construction phase. The UK support group needs to remain closely involved in this project to ensure that the design of the new radar system takes account of the requirements of our scientists, ideally also making sure that UK companies can also benefit from some of the opportunities offered by this new project.