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NAIC/AO Newsletter, March 1997
Exactly 40 people participated in the first general Atmospheric Sciences Workshop held at Arecibo during 9-11 January 1997. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the application of the upgraded capabilities at the Observatory related to what new science of the upper atmosphere could be accomplished over the next several years. It was our intent that several major areas needed to be addressed and we solicited both a theoretical and an experimental expert in each of the areas to lead the discussions.
To get things started, on the first morning members of the Arecibo aeronomy staff presented summaries of the research capabilities in several important areas. These talks were primarily designed to update the user community on what has changed at Arecibo during the last few years including, in particular, the new procedures for submitting observing proposals to the Observatory discussed by our site director, Daniel Altschuler. In addition to presentations by various staff with the latest information on new HF Facility and Optical Laboratory instrumentation, Mike Sulzer (NAIC) also discussed one of the significant improvements for atmospheric research, that is, the new 430-MHz dual-feed capability that we will gain as the result of the Gregorian upgrade. Brief summaries of upcoming major experiments were also presented, such as the NASA rocket campaign currently scheduled for January-February 1998.
There were five major topic areas, or subworkshops, to discuss during our workshop, and each of these were run in sequence. Beginning in the afternoon of the first day, we addressed the first topic, "Space Weather and E- & F-region Coupling." Michael Kelley (Cornell) and Richard Behnke (NSF) led this subgroup for which there were many active participants presenting their ideas while others less directly involved observed, occasionally offering constructive comments. One outcome of this subworkshop was a need to develop a set of observing proposals that could take advantage of the clustered instrumentation that will be fielded at Arecibo during the rocket study next year. The first day terminated with a brief tour of the Arecibo facilities and the traditional conference dinner catered at the observatory poolside.
On Day 2, Friday, each of the remaining four major topic areas were discussed in series. In order, these were the "Protonosphere and Plasmasphere" led by Graham Bailey (Sheffield) and Robert Kerr (Boston), "Lower Thermosphere and Gravity-wave Coupling" led by Michael Hickey (Alabama) and John Mathews (Penn State), "Aeronomical Uses of the Arecibo HF Facility" led by Paul Bernhardt (NRL) and Mike Sulzer, and finally, "Mesosphere and D-region Ionosphere" led by Erhan Kudeki (Illinois) and Timothy Kane (Penn State). As with the first subworkshop, there were lively discussions in each of these areas with many participants volunteering to present their latest ideas. Before the end of Day 2, each of the five subgroups presented a brief summary to the general group. In addition, throughout the discussions, several splinter groups formed to follow up the many details needed to be addressed in order to plan specialized experiments using the Arecibo facilities.
For example, on the final morning of the meeting, splinter groups meeting in parallel discussed detailed plans for the observational needs during the next Leonids meteor shower and beyond, which are expected to increase in intensity over the next few years. A group was formed to hash out the details for the participant responsibilities and for the observing proposals required by NAIC to support the upcoming rocket campaign. The upcoming POLITE and topside ionosphere World Day campaigns were handled by yet another subgroup. Besides sorting out the science objectives and the individual responsibilities for those campaigns on the 1997 World Day schedule, this group also sketched out a multi-institutional collaboration that will be proposed to the NSF for the current CEDAR proposal solicitation.
Three other splinter groups discussed their plans for participation in the National Space Weather Program, plans for HF-Facility-related studies including new aeronomic applications, and in designing new experiments to measure atmospheric tides and gravity waves using the upgraded facilities at Arecibo, in particular with the new 430-MHz dual radar beam advantage. Overall, we feel that this was a successful first workshop for atmospheric sciences at the Arecibo Observatory. Most participants took with them a feeling of reinvigoration in what new science could be done using the upgraded facilities here.
We are preparing a notebook that will summarize many of the discussions that took place at this workshop. The notebook will also contain supplementary material presented by the Arecibo staff. After we receive all of the requested material, we will compile them and distribute the resulting notebook to all workshop participants. We also expect that a limited number of copies will be available for other interested persons who could not attend the meeting.
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