Enhanced Research Opportunity to Study the Atmospheric Forcing by High-Energy Particle Precipitation at High Latitudes: Emerging New Satellite Data and the new Ground-Based Observations in Northern Scandinavia, including the EISCAT_3D Incoherent Scatter Facility.
Abstract
Recent observational and model results on the particle precipitation as source of atmospheric variability challenge us to implement better and continuously monitoring observational infrastructure for middle and upper atmospheric research. An example is the effect of high-energy electron precipitation during pulsating aurora on mesospheric ozone, the concentration of which may be reduced by several tens of percent, similarily as during some solar proton events, which are known to occur more rarely than pulsating aurora. So far the Assessment Reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change did not include explicitely the particle forcing of middle and upper atmosphere in their climate model scenarios. This will appear for the first time in the upcoming climate simulations. We review recent results related to atmospheric forcing by particle precipitation via effects on chemical composition. We also show the research potential of new ground-based radio measurement techniques, such as spectral riometry and incoherent scatter by new phased-array radars, such as EISCAT_3D, which will be a volumetric, 3- dimensionally imaging radar, distributed in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. It is expected to be operational from 2020 onwards, surpassing all the current IS radars of the world in technology. It will be able to produce continuous information of ionospheric plasma parameters in a volume, including 3D-vector plasma velocities. For the first time we will be able to map the 3D electric currents in ionosphere, as well as we will have continuous vector wind measurements in mesosphere. The geographical area covered by the EISCAT_3D measurements can be expanded by suitably selected other continuous observations, such as optical and satellite tomography networks. A new 100 Hz all-sky camera network was recently installed in Northern Scandinavia in order to support the Japanese Arase satellite mission. In near future the ground-based measurement network will also include new mesospheric ozone observations and a north-south chain of spectral riometers in Finland. New space missions will gain from this emerging enhancement of ground-based observations. Possibly essential new data could be provided by polar orbiting cubesats for which scientific level instrumentation is currently being developed.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017AGUFMSM41B..02T
- Keywords:
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- 2455 Particle precipitation;
- IONOSPHERE;
- 2716 Energetic particles: precipitating;
- MAGNETOSPHERIC PHYSICS;
- 2774 Radiation belts;
- MAGNETOSPHERIC PHYSICS;
- 2794 Instruments and techniques;
- MAGNETOSPHERIC PHYSICS