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==Research Opportunities at Millstone Hill Observatory==

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===Location===
Interlaken

===Date/Time===
1300-1500 Thursday 19 June 2008

===Conveners===
* [mailto:pje@haystack.mit.edu Phil Erickson]
* [mailto:flind@haystack.mit.edu Frank Lind]
* [mailto:ajc@haystack.mit.edu Anthea Coster]

===Format of the Workshop===
short presentations and audience discussions

===Duration===
2 hours (default)

===Estimated attendance===
30+

===Conflicts with other workshops===
avoid other ISR workshop times 

(Jicamarca, Arecibo) and World Day Scheduling, plus Lind/Urbina technology
workshop and Coster/Ruohoniemi PBL workshop; schedule in last half
of week to allow some GEM overlap participation

===Special technology requests===
none

===Forum===
[[Special:Forum/74|Comments, Questions, Discussion Forum]]

===Brief Initial Description===
The Millstone Hill incoherent scatter radar (ISR) forms the core of 
Millstone Hill Observatory, an NSF Upper Atmospheric Facility located at 
MIT Haystack Observatory near Boston, Massachusetts.  Located at 55 
degrees geomagnetic latitude, the facility is well positioned for the 
study of mid-latitude and sub-auroral ionospheric processes. This 
includes excellent radar coverage of the complex and dynamic 
plasmasphere boundary layer region, with fields of view extending beyond 
1500 km range for F-region observations. The Millstone Hill facility 
provides a range of capabilities including active radar, passive optics, 
global GPS TEC mapping, passive radar, and ionospheric sounding.  These 
allow comprehensive plasmasphere and inner magnetosphere studies in 
areas of considerable and current interest within the space science 
research community. Examples include magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling, 
fundamental aeronomy, long term ionospheric trends, geomagnetic storm 
response, space weather effects, and the dynamics of 
thermosphere-ionosphere and lower-upper atmospheric coupling.

This workshop will focus on opportunities for the CEDAR and GEM 
communities to conduct high impact science using Millstone Hill's 
facilities.  Using short organizing presentations, we will describe 
observatory capabilities now and into the upcoming solar maximum period. 
The bulk of time will be devoted to interactive, science discussions 
aimed at stimulating community ideas on the ways in which mid-latitude 
science can advance outstanding questions in upper atmospheric research, 
leading to a greater system-level understanding of the 
atmosphere-magnetosphere-ionosphere environment.  We will also provide 
practical information on how to utilize Millstone Hill facilities, 
experiments, and data in ongoing research programs and interests. 
Overviews will be targeted at appropriate levels to accommodate the full 
range of CEDAR/GEM community members, from students to veteran researchers.

===Final agenda===

'''1.''' Millstone Hill Facility Overview and One-Slide Science [Phil Erickson]

'''2.''' Science Opportunities at Mid-Latitudes:

''a.'' Space Weather effects at mid-latitudes [Anthea Coster]

''b.'' Plasmasphere Boundary Layer effects [Phil Erickson]

''c.'' Ionospheric variability at mid-latitudes [Michael Mendillo]

''d.'' Mid-latitude plasma processes [Jean-Pierre St. Maurice]

'''3.''' Future Visions and Plans at Millstone Hill:

''a.'' Optics Program [John Noto]

''b.'' MARS [Frank Lind]

'''4.''' Audience questions / discussion / summary

===Workshop summary===

The 2008 CEDAR Workshop "Research Opportunities at Millstone Hill Observatory" highlighted the range of exciting science possible 
at mid-latitudes, with a special focus on the capabilities of the mid-latitude Millstone Hill CEDAR Class 1 Facility and how they
can be used to address outstanding and unresolved science questions.  

Phil Erickson began the workshop by describing the Class I CEDAR
instrumentation available at Millstone Hill, including the NSF Upper Atmospheric Facilities supported incoherent scatter radar with
full local, regional, and wide coverage plasma profile capability and a 
spatial range from the northern Canadian maritimes to just north of Puerto Rico.  The MIT maintained MADRIGAL distributed database
is available as well to serve data from Millstone and other ISRs and to place measurements in regional and mesoscale context, using
ancillary instrumentation such as GPS TEC maps, ISIS RF capture platforms, and a virtual empirical ionospheric model suite.  
The Millstone Hill ISR database spans more than 4 solar cycles and contains specific
unique data sets (30 day runs, biweekly 30 hour IPY observations, stratospheric warming campaigns) ideal for multiple climatology,
model/data comparison, and storm studies.

Phil continued with broad "one-slide science" coverage of topics with significant unexplained features in the mid-latitude ionosphere:
the role of plasmasphere boundary layers at mid latitudes in disturbance electric field penetration, long term ionospheric trends
and climatologies, mid-latitude tidal studies with multiple observations and models, lower-upper atmosphere coupling during stratwarm
events, and mid-latitude traveling ionospheric disturbance (TID) studies using multiple techniques.  All of these science topics
are the subject of community focus and separate workshops, and have plenty of unsolved problems appropriate for new researchers and students.

Anthea Coster described significant mid-latitude space weather effects over the heavily populated continental US, focusing on
geophysically driven storm-enhanced density (SED) structures and the sub-auroral polarization stream (SAPS), along with resultant effects 
on operational systems such as maritime differential GPS and other navigation systems.  She emphasized that the statistical nature 
and individual event characteristics of these effects are of crucial importance and relevance to the wider community as well as CEDAR.

Phil Erickson returned to describe the wide range of mid-latitude physics within the plasmasphere boundary layer, at the interface between
the auroral magnetosphere and the ionosphere/thermosphere dominated inner region.  He covered in more detail outstanding questions
regarding SED, SAPS, wave/particle interactions, and optically driven hallmarks of magnetosphere/ionosphere coupling such as stable auroral red
arcs (SAR arcs).  A wide list of unanswered puzzles about PBL dynamics followed which address the full range of magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere coupling effects, all hot topics in the CEDAR and GEM communities from mesoscales to microscales.

Michael Mendillo next presented some thoughts on ionospheric variability at mid-latitudes, focusing on comparisons of models and long duration
incoherent scatter radar runs.  Comparisons of TIME-GCM and ionosonde records at mid-latitudes reveal that variability has interesting features
which do not always correlate in a straightforward manner to the presence or absence of geomagnetic activity, as one would initially think.
Long duration runs from the Millstone Hill ISR present a valuable resource to resolve this puzzle, especially as some of these present full
vector velocity/electric field as well as altitude dependent ion and neutral temperature information.

Jean-Pierre St. Maurice then contributed a wide range of thoughts on mid-latitude plasma wave structures and resulting coherent backscatter
techniques for probing these with ground based radars.  He emphasized that a vast number of mid-latitude puzzles exist, such as radar echoes
from small scale structures within thin layers, where localization with respect to gradients is not always as expected.  So-called trough echoes
in the middle of the plasmasphere boundary layer also require further study, as their generation mechanism has not been completely pinned down.
Finally, both the E and F region ionosphere require much further study to elucidate the drivers of wave structures.  In particular, SED events
may have enough gradients and electric fields to trigger interchange instabilities.

The session concluded with two presentations on the future plans and vision for the Millstone Hill facility.  John Noto (SSI) described the 
large number of upgrade paths and plans for the passive optics facility at Millstone, with several new red line and green line capabilities coming
online soon providing both airglow intensity and all-sky imaging capability for winds.  Frank Lind described the concept and plans for the
Millstone Advanced Radar System (MARS), being developed with MIT Lincoln Laboratory and others as a next generation phased array architecture.
MARS is a broadband array design with highly integrated all-digital receiver and exciters at the individual radar element level backed by
supercomputing signal processing.  The design retains wide field coverage and scanning capabilities, and the MARS concept is a multi-role
instrument with ionosphere / upper atmosphere radar, radio astronomy, lower atmosphere, and heliosphere application.  MARS is currently 
the subject of ongoing technical studies, and will represent a significant advance in Millstone Hill's capabilities.

Audience questions were addressed throughout the presentations, and the participants left with a greater understanding of the enormous range of
unexplored science possible in the exciting and dynamic mid-latitude region.

===Presentation Resources===
Contact Phil Erickson [mailto:pje@haystack.mit.edu].

[[Category:2008 Workshop|Research Opportunities at Millstone Hill Observatory]]