CEDAR: The First All-Sky Airglow Imaging Studies at Geomagnetic Conjugate Sites in Europe and Africa

提案编号：AGS-1552045首席研究员：Jeffrey Baumgardner研究所：波士顿大学提案标题：CEDAR：欧洲和非洲地磁共轭站点的第一个全天空气辉成像研究该项目将显著推进波士顿大学、南非国家航天局(SASA)和意大利帕杜瓦大学之间的现有合作，使用独特的磁性共轭全天成像仪结构来研究高层大气现象中的半球不对称。Sansa和Padua的专业知识对该项目至关重要，因为仪器将实际安装在这两个地点。这些成像器之前是由BU开发的，并由单独的资金安装。帕多瓦成像仪是欧洲大陆第一台连续运行的全天空高层大气成像仪。通过在珊莎的共轭成像仪，这两颗卫星将为大气过渡到空间环境的高度的半球不对称现象提供新的线索。该研究小组是光学空气动力学领域的首屈一指的小组之一，建议利用国际合作者的专业知识和新型数据集在理解高层大气动力学方面取得重要进展。该项目将为研究生提供国际研究经验，他们将在项目的五年期间完成一篇博士论文。与意大利和南非机构的国际合作将得到该项目的支持，这对发展旨在解决高层大气-地球空间耦合前沿问题的观测能力既令人信服，又具有重要的战略意义。为了支持这一努力，美国国家科学基金会国际科学与工程办公室(OISE)通过全球风险基金支持所有申请的国际旅行，共同资助这一项目。这项主要观测调查的目标现象包括：稳定的极光(SAR)弧、中等尺度移动电离层扰动(MSTID)、电离层纬度梯度和中层波--所有这些都是大气和地球空间区域之间耦合的重要动力学特征。探索这些现象的纵向和半球差异有可能增加我们对电离层-热层-磁层耦合系统的动力学的理解，因为它与来自空间和低层大气的投入相互作用。关注新的经度领域具有重要意义，原因有几个。在经度区段之间移动，在组织空间天气输入的地磁坐标系和组织大气日变化和季节变化的地理坐标系之间产生了变化的偏移量。此外，天气系统或地形引起的低层大气向上传播的扰动也会随着位置的不同而变化。地磁共轭具有重要作用，即选择特定事件的空间天气扰动输入相似但日和季节条件不同的地点。然后，就有可能开始区分不同类型的投入及其相互联系所产生的影响。

Proposal Number: AGS - 1552045Principal Investigator: Jeffrey BaumgardnerInstitution: Boston UniversityProposal title: CEDAR: The First All-Sky Airglow Imaging Studies at GeomagneticConjugate Sites in Europe and AfricaABSTRACTThis project will significantly advance an existing collaboration between Boston University, the South African National Space Agency (SANSA), and the University of Padua in Italy to investigate hemispheric asymmetries in upper atmospheric phenomena using a unique configuration of magnetically conjugate all-sky imagers. The SANSA and Padua expertise are essential to the project because instrumentation will be physically located at these two sites. The imagers were previously developed by BU and installed under separate funding. The Padua imager is the first continuously operating all-sky upper-atmospheric imager on the European continent. With its conjugate imager at SANSA, the pair is positioned to shed new light on hemispheric asymmetries at altitudes where the atmosphere transitions into the space environment. The research team, one of the premiere groups in optical aeronomy, proposes to leverage the expertise of the international collaborators and the new type of data set to make important advances in understanding upper atmospheric dynamics. The project will provide an international research experience for a graduate student who will complete a doctoral thesis during the 5-year period of the project. The international collaborations with institutions in Italy and South Africa that will be supported by the project are both compelling and have strategic importance for developing observing capabilities aimed at addressing frontier issues in upper atmosphere - Geospace coupling. In support of this effort, the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) is co-funding this project by supporting all requested international travel through the Global Venture Fund.The target phenomena for this primarily observational investigation include: Stable Auroral Red (SAR) arcs, Medium Scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances (MSTIDs), ionospheric latitude gradients, and mesospheric waves - all dynamically important signatures of coupling between atmospheric and geospace regions. Exploring the longitudinal and hemispheric differences in these phenomena has the potential for increasing our understanding of the dynamics of the coupled ionosphere-thermosphere-magnetosphere system as it interacts with inputs from space and from the lower atmosphere. The focus on a new longitude sector is important for several reasons. Moving between longitude sectors introduces a changing offset between the geomagnetic coordinate system that organizes space weather inputs and the geographic coordinate system that organizes diurnal and seasonal changes in the atmosphere. In addition, upward propagating disturbances from the lower atmosphere due to weather systems or orography also change with location. Geomagnetic conjugacy has the important effect of selecting locations where the space weather disturbance inputs are similar for a given event but diurnal and seasonal conditions are not. The potential then exists to begin to separate out the effects attributable to the different types of inputs and their interconnections.