European Incoherent Scatter Radar Facility (EISCAT) - UK Support

这项提案正在为一个四人小组寻求资金，他们都从事其他项目，他们花部分时间与研究人员一起使用斯堪的纳维亚半岛北方的强大雷达系统EISCAT进行高层大气和空间天气研究。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运行自己的实验，以研究极地高层大气的特定特性和空间天气过程的物理学。这些用户特定的实验被称为特别方案。此外，联合王国的EISCAT用户还可以使用一个更大的更通用的观测数据库，称为共同方案，这些方案是代表整个国际社会进行的，并提供给EISCAT的所有科学家。自2010年以来，空间天气的研究，即空间环境对地球的影响，一直是NERC职权范围的一部分。EISCAT是NERC投资的最重要的空间天气研究设施，它是英国研究人员在这一领域的重点。它也是类似雷达的全球网络的一部分，这些雷达研究我们的大气如何在短期和长期时间尺度上变化，以响应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，甚至可以进行低频射电天文学研究。虽然EISCAT雷达具有很大的功能和灵活性，但它们的使用也非常复杂，其数据也很难解释。调度和操作必须遵循特定程序，需要进行一些培训以了解雷达的操作方式。雷达产生的数据集也往往非常大，需要专门的软件来分析这些数据并将其转化为高层大气参数的估计值。EISCAT支持小组的成员已经与这些雷达合作多年，并对它们非常熟悉，他们可以帮助那些可能没有相同知识水平的科学用户，使NERC在支持团队中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，并在培训课程上讲课，参加公关和媒体活动，向人们介绍EISCAT雷达系统及其功能。在过去的十年中，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当前一代雷达。这个设施被称为EISCAT_3D，它是基于一种称为“相控阵列”的设计原理，使用天线阵列，而不是可操纵的碟形天线。相控天线阵列的使用，加上模块化发射机、接收机系统和高性能计算的最新进展，现在使设计一种功能更强大、更高效、更灵活的雷达成为可能。部分归功于NERC的600万英镑投资，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该项目，以确保新雷达系统的设计考虑到我们科学家的要求，最好也确保英国公司也可以从这个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.