(LDS1) Contributions to the climatology of the upper atmosphere by optical techniques associated with the Upper Atmosphere Facilities (Final Report)

Conveners:
Rick Niciejewski (niciejew@umich.edu),
John Noto (noto@sci-sol.com)

2004 Thursday 01 July 0330-0530 PM

50 people attended the "Contributions to the climatology of the upper atmosphere by optical techniques associated with the Upper Atmosphere Facilities' workshop Thursday afternoon, July 1 2004. This enthusiastic response resulted in the workshop extending from 3:45 to 6:45 pm.

The workshop goals focused on climatological studies related to long-term synoptic neutral wind and temperature observations. Specifically, studies relating to long-term characterization of the climatology of the upper atmosphere (Global Change/Space Weather) were presented as well as relevant modeling studies. At the 2003 CEDAR meeting, related workshops included "The Fabry-Perot Interferometer Workshop" chaired by John Meriwether, Jr., and the "Topside Workshop" led by John Noto. These workshops described recent advances in technology and optical observations of exospheric parameters, respectively. The 2004 Climatology Workshop built upon the tradition of observing state variables with optical interferometers and the science problems that can be addressed by these measurements.

The Upper Atmosphere Facilities, the infrastructure at Kitt Peak in Arizona and at the EISCAT facilities in Europe provide a convenient platform for optical aeronomy and synoptic measurements. New findings related to upper atmosphere climatology were presented from all of these sites describing

  1. solar cycle dependences on neutral winds at high and middle latitudes
  2. solar cycle dependences on neutral hydrogen abundance in the exosphere
  3. hot neutral helium abundance in the exosphere
Specifically, several talks were presented that showed the need for collocated optical and radar climatological measurements describing both the neutral thermosphere and the F-region ionosphere. A new emphasis for empirical modeling towards predicting thermodynamics in the upper thermosphere during magnetic storms was discussed. Attempts at predicting fine spatial details in neutral wind morphology and their associated difficulties were presented. The climatological description of the neutral atmosphere, made possible by optical measurements from a chain of observatories, was also discussed including the creation of a small South American chain involving Fabry Perot interferometers from Clemson and Scientific Solutions.

A rousing discussion resulted from Bob Kerr's talk on the NSF perspective on passive optical observations. Discussions began with the question of whether the Upper Atmospheric Facilities (UAF) directorate should be required to fund optical observations. This extended to how the optical community feels about facility optics in general and it's funding model, and what we can do as a community to further optical observations. Mention was made of improving capabilities at the existing observatories by upgrading extant instrumentation with class one detectors such as CCD cameras and adding spectrometers. The stability of a long-term synoptic observation strategy is dependent upon repeated measurements with a group of standard and fixed experiments. The manpower and equipment resources that have provided these measurements have reached a stage where serious component failures or retirements are a real concern. The future challenges that were identified for the community are to:

  1. articulate the need for long-term climatological observations
  2. to consolidate resources into a common consortium effort
  3. to maintain and upgrade the current instrumentation base
Work proceeding towards these goals will be embodied in the forthcoming Passive Optics Workshop Report to the CEDAR Science Steering Committee in November 2004.