CEDAR email: The 2nd international observation campaign: Sept 16 - Oct 1

[Shunrong Zhang]

The 2nd International observation campaign along the 120E/60W Meridian Circle (Sept 16 - Oct 1)

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From Shunrong Zhang (shunrong at haystack.mit.edu).

Dear colleagues,

I am sending this note to call your attention to and invite your participation in the upcoming international campaign along the 120E/60W meridian circle.

This second MERINO (MEridian ciRcle INternational Observation) campaign will span the period from September 16 to October 1, 2014. This is a follow-up to a successful first campaign conducted during March 24 - April 6 earlier this year. Scientific goals for the series of observations are to examine upper atmosphere sciences along a complete meridian circle of 120E/60W longitudes across America and Asian longitude sectors. Within the circle, a fundamental difference between geographic and magnetic coordinate systems exhibits an opposite offset for the eastern and western hemispheres, causing various interesting consequences. Further understanding the underlying sciences driving vertical coupling and horizontal variability requires dedicated and coordinated observations.

Core ground-based upper atmospheric observational facilities consist of Chinese Meridian Project observatories in Asia sectors, a newly operational space weather monitoring system, and US-NSF geospace facilities (in particular, incoherent scatter radars as well as other optical and radio instruments) in America sectors. Many other facilities from Japan, China and those neighboring Asian countries are also joining the campaign. Our focus is the 120E/60W meridian, however, observations from surrounding areas can put us on an appropriate context, and therefore are strongly encouraged to participate.

Data collected from the campaigns will be made available at the Madrigal/CEDAR database, the Meridian Project database center, and other local data inventories. We are looking forward to interested parties in participating data taking, modeling, and science analysis.

Further information may be found at http://merino.mit.edu, or contact

Shunrong Zhang (srzhang at haystack.mit.edu)
Haystack/Millstone Hill Observatory,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Westford, MA 01886
USA