Full Proposals for IPY 2007-2008 Activities

Proposed IPY Activity Details

1.0 PROPOSER INFORMATION

(Activity ID No: 63)

1.1 Title of Activity
ICESTAR/IHY – Interhemispheric Conjugacy in Geospace Phenomena and their Heliospheric Drivers

1.2 Short Form Title of Proposed Activity
ICESTAR/IHY

1.3 Activity Leader Details
Kirsti Kauristie
Finnish Meteorological Institute
Finland

1.4 Lead International Organisation(s) (if applicable)
Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research
NULL
NULL
NULL

1.5 Other Countries involved in the activity
Australia
Brazil
Canada
Italy
Japan
Malaysia
Sweden
UK
Ukraine
USA
Russia
Poland
Norway
South Africa
NULL
NULL

1.6 Expression of Intent ID #'s brought together in this proposed activity
554,172,12,14,72,99,118,155, 159,163,250,259,274,352,422,547,550,551,555,587,603,648,803,894, 355, 945, 946, 947, 1078

1.7 Location of Field Activities
Bipolar

1.8 Which IPY themes are addressed
1. Current state of the environment
2. Change in the polar regions
3. Polar-global linkages/tele-connections
4. Exploring new frontiers
5. The polar regions as vantage points
6. The human dimension in polar regions

1.9 What is the main IPY target addressed by this activity
1. Natural or social science

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2.0 SUMMARY OF THE ACTIVITY

ICESTAR/IHY will coordinate multinational research on solar-generated events which affect the composition and dynamics of the atmosphere in the terrestrial polar areas. The activity brings together two complementary programmes: the International Heliophysical Year (IHY) (EoI 172) is an international programme to coordinate the use of current and forthcoming spacecraft missions with ground-based observatory instruments to study the Sun’s influence on the heliosphere, including effects at the Earth; ICESTAR (EoI 554), endorsed by SCAR, aims to coordinate research on magnetospheric and ionospheric responses to solar inputs, with emphases on the networking of ground-based instrument networks and the study of inter-hemispheric relationships. The proposed joint project includes the collective effort of 24 international consortia which submitted their Expressions of Intent (EoIs) to the IPY call in January 2005. Between them, these groups already run a large body of instrumentation in both the Arctic and the Antarctic to support this research programme. Several consortia are also proposing to install new instruments in the polar regions to significantly improve the spatial coverage and resolution and to provide pairs of geomagnetically conjugate observations from both the hemispheres. The resulting observations and value-added data products will be used together with state-of-the-art models and simulations to improve our quantitative understanding of the near-Earth space environment.
The scientific goals of the 24 EoIs can be categorised under the following three main themes:
(i) Coupling processes between the different atmospheric layers and their connection with the solar activity: E.g. effects of mid-atmospheric circulation and extreme solar activity on the content of stratospheric ozone and minor constituents, variations of the cosmic ray fluxes above the polar areas and South Atlantic Anomaly, energy transfer from powerful weather fronts to geospace heights and using novel technology for stratospheric magnetic field measurements.
(ii) Energy and mass exchange between the ionosphere and the magnetosphere: E.g. multiscale and tomographic studies of ionospheric phenomena (auroral precipitation, convection, turbulence and electron content) as driven by magnetospheric and solar activity, remote-sensing of the radiation belts, and balloon-borne radio soundings of the ionosphere in conjunction with ground stations and satellites as pilot studies for future NASA missions.
(iii) Inter-hemispheric similarities and asymmetries in geospace phenomena: Science goals as above but under this theme special emphasis will be put on using both Arctic and Antarctic observations. In addition to several magnetometer and optical instrument networks bipolar data will be available also from HF-radars, riometers, digital ionosondes, dynasondes, dual-frequency GPS receivers and LEO satellite beacon receivers.
Each project in the combined proposal has a set of project-specific scientific objectives, but the interrelationships between the studied processes mean there is significant synergy between the projects. The result is that the overall proposal will be able to address topics with far-reaching scientific impact and of importance to society at large. For example, a practical benefit will be improved prediction of space weather phenomena which adversely affect spacecraft operations, humans in space, and satellite-based positioning systems; on the scientific side, global scale coordination of observing networks will allow us to study conjugate and multi-scale geospace phenomena in fundamentally new ways.
IHY will coordinate an overarching synoptic observation programme and will provide systems and assessment processes for coordinating and facilitating dedicated campaigns in order to reap the advantages of interdisciplinary observations. To facilitate data sharing, ICESTAR will lead an effort to establish a set of Virtual Observatories in accordance with concept of the Electronic Geophysical Year (eGY). Frequently updated web-pages will be the most effective way to disseminate the scientific results. Special sessions at international meetings and dedicated workshops will provide other channels to reach the broader community and to efficiently collect feedback. The public awareness of ICESTAR/IHY activities will be increased with popular articles and web-pages and with regularly coordinated media events.

2.1 What is the evidence of inter-disciplinarity in this activity?
The study of geospace phenomena is inherently interdisciplinary because it brings together solar, heliospheric, space, and atmospheric sciences in order to understand the chain of processes from the solar interior to the Earth. Moreover, since we are studying a natural system in which order arises spontaneously and which displays evidence of self-organized behaviour, the new multidisciplinary field of “complexity” is becoming relevant to our efforts. We observe using diverse state-of-the-art instrumentation, located both on the ground and in space, so requiring the involvement of experts in systems, electrical, computer, communications and optical engineering. In order to deal effectively with the heterogeneous TByte data sets we produce, we draw on the fields of image and signal processing, machine intelligence, and grid computing.

2.2 What will be the significant advances/developments from this activity? What will be the major deliverables? What are the outputs for your peers?
ICESTAR/IHY will generate unique, continuous high-quality data sets which will be easily accessible via modern data-sharing systems. The scientific community will benefit from several new methods for creating value-added products from raw data and for remote sensing different geospace phenomena like gravity waves, ionospheric turbulence and magnetospheric plasma oscillations. ICESTAR/IHY will increase our knowledge especially on the coupling between solar-terrestrial phenomena and neutral atmosphere dynamics (chemistry and even some meteorological phenomena) and on the interhemispheric asymmetries of these processes. These research areas are still relatively young and thus have potential for multidisciplinary and widely refereed publication records.

2.3 Outline the geographical location(s) for the proposed field work (approximate coordinates will be helpful if possible)

2.4 Define the approximate timeframe(s) for proposed field activities?

2.5 What major logistic support/facilities will be required for this project?
Existing field stations
Observatories
Multi-instrumented platforms
New field station
Rockets
Radars

Further details – All the proposals for observations and deployment of instrumentation from the original EoIs were drawn up with the involvement either of national polar agencies or of organisations already operating facilities in the polar regions. In most cases the satellite, balloon and facility operations and logistics are already under the control of proposing groups. It is therefore proposed to leave the details of logistic support and its provision to the groups involved in the individual programmes of work.

2.6 How will the required logistics be supplied? Have operators been approached?

2.7 If working in the Arctic regions, has there been contact with local indigenous groups or relevant authorities regarding access?

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3.0 STRUCTURE OF THE ACTIVITY

3.1 Origin of the activity
This is a pulse of activity during 2007-2009 within an existing programme

If part of an existing programme please name the programme – The SCAR ICESTAR programme (2005-2009) and several other national and international research programmes

3.2 How will the activity be organised and managed? Describe the proposed management structure and means for coordinating across the cluster
The activity will be organised as a federation of subsidiary projects, each with a large degree of autonomy but with coordinating oversight from a steering committee. The constituent EoIs of ICESTAR/IHY will have their own management bodies typically consisting of the instrument PIs and representatives from the funding parties, so that the best available expertise is close to the everyday activities. The ICESTAR/IHY steering committee will consist of representatives from the EoIs, with the lead being taken by IHY and ICESTAR, and including experts for the scientific issues, for the data-sharing procedures and for public and educational outreach. Detailed oversight of each of these areas will be delegated to a series of working groups - between them ICESTAR and IHY already have a number of these that cover the requirements of the overall activity.
The steering committee will take an early role in identifying where constituent EoIs have the potential to collaborate on observations or logistics. Many of the EoI projects are already consortia with well-established procedures for coordination (e.g. ISPAM and SuperDARN, 159 and 250). Further inter-project coordination will be achieved principally using the structures and procedures of IHY; projects will be encouraged to register their activities formally with the IHY either as Coordinated Investigation Programmes (CIPs) or as Synoptic Programmes. All such proposals will be reviewed by IHY Science Working Groups, organised by discipline and consisting of experts in the field. For the projects coming together for IPY there is typically already a commitment of resources. The role of the SWGs will therefore, in this case, largely be confined to identifying synergies between proposals; in general, they will also liaise with observatory representatives and IHY national coordinators to assess the feasibility of proposals and negotiate the use of observatory facilities.

The lead on coordinating data archiving and dissemination will be taken by ICESTAR, with the construction of its data portal being the driver for ensuring good practice and interoperability; the ICESTAR Data Portal Working Group will work closely with representatives from all the constituent projects. IHY has a committee in place for public outreach and this will be extended appropriately to incorporate the particular interests of the other projects. The various committees and working groups will largely operate remotely, using e-mail and other electronic means (e.g. newsgroups, wikis) for communication. Business meetings will also be arranged to be held during the large scientific conferences (EGU, AGU or IUGG).

3.3 Will the activity leave a legacy of infrastructure and if so in what form?
A wide range of instrumentation with anticipated lifetimes beyond 2007 is proposed for installation in both polar regions including: HF radars, magnetometers, riometers, auroral imagers, GPS scintillation and dual frequency receivers, a VLF beacon transmitter, MST radars, radiometers, autonomous meteo-magnetic stations and balloon-borne radio sounders (EoIs 12, 72, 250, 259, 422, 550, 551, 555, 587, 803, 894). Installation of HF radars at Inuvik and Rankin Inlet (250, 648) has entailed providing power lines and buildings, and there is the potential for housing additional instruments at these sites. Permanent data archiving, management and access systems will be left by many projects - ISPAM, SuperDARN, ISAP and CGSM are good examples (159, 250, 422, 648). ICESTAR (554) will leave an overarching web portal to a set of Virtual Observatories for geospace, in line with the activities of the Electronic Geophysical Year (EoI 150 in another cluster). IHY (172) will leave behind systems for improved collaboration and cooperation worldwide, and this applies to a greater or lesser extent to most of the original EoIs. Existing correlative data systems (e.g., CDAWeb, OMNIWeb, COHOWeb, ATMOWeb, ModelWeb, SSCWeb, HelioWeb) of the NASA Space Physics Data Facility (259) will support this effort.

3.4 Will the activity involve nations other than traditional polar nations? How will this be addressed?
A Malaysian group is participating directly through EoI 894, and the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme of South Africa (in EoI 551) provides space-related research opportunities to students from across Africa. The IHY programme has a commitment to including developing nations; the UN Basic Space Science Initiative is dedicated to IHY from 2005 to 2008, with the aim of involving developing nations in deploying arrays of ground-based instrumentation. The importance of the polar regions in the solar-terrestrial system is expected to lead to these nations collaborating in several of the observational programmes of this proposal.

3.5 Will this activity be linked with other IPY core activities? If yes please specify
The consortium includes groups (e.g. DEEVERT, EoI 12) which are concerned with coupling processes through the atmosphere, linking with core topics on clouds, atmospheric chemistry, weather and climate, and teleconnections between the poles and mid-latitudes. The effect of varying cosmic ray fluxes on the geoelectric circuit and cloud formation provides other links with these atmospheric topics. ICESTAR will work with the SCAR/COMNAP Joint Committee on Antarctic Data Management within the framework of eGY (150). Many of the groups run monitoring instruments in the Arctic, linking with the COMAAR (503) initiative to improve Arctic monitoring, and UAMPY (551) is closely connected with activities to extend the capabilities of Svalbard and SANAE as research bases (597, 825). IHY has a strong emphasis on public outreach, with specific links to the Peoples' Planet activity (841).

3.6 How will the activity manage its data? Is there a viable plan and which data management organisations/structures will be involved?
The research groups making observations will be offered three ways to join the ICESTAR/IHY data archiving and dissemination system: (i) to participate in the development of Virtual Observatories (ii) to join with the IHY Synoptic Programmes or (iii) to operate as a Coordinated Investigation Programme. The first option will naturally demand more work initially than the other options but in the longer run these efforts will be repaid by the ease with which data from multiple sources can be shared and combined. The third option is intended for some special cases where restricted access for a smaller group is required. Some research groups maintaining networks of widely-used instruments, like magnetometers, SuperDARN HF radars (EoI 250), and VLF Remote Sensing equipment (EoI 587) have already expressed their interest in a Virtual Observatory during the ongoing ICESTAR project sponsored by SCAR.

3.7 Data Policy Agreement
Will this activity sign up to the IPY draft Data Policy (see website)
Yes

3.8 How will the activity contribute to developing the next generation of polar scientists, logisticians, etc.?
ICESTAR/IHY will be run mostly by universities and research institutes collaborating with them. The proposed project will together with space science centers provide plenty of material for interesting and challenging exercises and thesis works. Students will participate in the measurement campaigns and in the development of the modern data-sharing systems. The easily accessible data-archives will provide important reference material for observational and theoretical investigations.

3.9 How will this activity address education, outreach and communication issues outlined in the Framework document?
For direct communication with the general public ICESTAR/IHY will establish an outreach programme which aims to coordinate parallel semi-annual media events in all participant countries during the IPY years. These events will be realized as press releases and popular lectures summarizing the recent scientific findings of the project. For the audience keen on observing the environment several ICESTAR/IHY groups will put up web-interfaces to show real-time data from their instrumentation. The public understanding of geospace science will be expanded also in collaboration with national research councils. The IPY 2007 Space Science Symposium (EoI 14) and the “Life on Icy Worlds” conference (EoI 259) respectively planned to be arranged in Greenland and in Alaska will be important forums for educating national science administrators and teachers about historical and forth coming research activities with the perspectives from Arctic natives, Antarctic scientists, and solar system explorers.

3.10 What are the proposed sources of funding for this activity?
Research institutes and space agencies have already made investments for the project by establishing ground-based and space-borne instrumentation. Further support for salaries and for the maintenance of equipment will be applied for from national funding agencies and from international sources (EU). SCAR has given ICESTAR some seed funding for preparatory work (for workshops and for the development of prototype Virtual Observatories).

3.11 Additional Comments
In 1.5 we list the countries of the Lead Contacts of the contributing EoIs. Other countries involved with ICESTAR/IHY activities are: Argentina, Chile, China, Denmark, France, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Poland and South Africa.
The agreement to the IPY Data Policy in item 3.7 is conditional on the final form of this policy. In particular, the question of proper acknowledgement of data producers must be addressed satisfactorily, along the lines indicated in the IPY Framework Document. Guidelines for the cases where private parts ask data for commercial purposes should also be included in the final document.

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4.0 CONSORTIUM INFORMATION

4.1 Contact Details

Lead Contact
Dr Kirsti Kauristie
Finnish Meteorological Institute
P.O.B. 503, Helsinki
FIN-00101
Finland

Tel:          -19294279
Mobile:   N/A
Fax:         -19294245
Email:       kirsti.kauristie@fmi.fi

Second Contact
Prof Richard Harrison
CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Chilton, Didcot, Oxfordshire.
OX11 0QX
UK

Tel:          +44 1235 446884
Mobile:   N/A
Fax:         +44 1235 445848
Email:      r.a.harrison@rl.ac.uk

4.2 Other significant consortium members and their affiliation