ISR world days in March 2016

Dear Colleagues,

In about a few weeks, we will be running another ISR world day campaign. This is part of the Meridian Circle International Observation (MERINO)  with a focus on space weather monitoring along the  meridian circle spanning Asia and America sectors.

1— Alert window March 5-19

The main goal of this campaign is to characterize upper atmospheric disturbances during space weather events. We have suggested a 5-­‐day continuous observation but the exact dates depend on prediction of magnetic activities. These days will be within the 2-­‐week long window from March 5 – 19, 2016 (the New Moon day is on March 9), and will be announced about 3 days prior to the start of campaign; however, due to uncertainty in the storm prediction, we hope the facilities remain flexible and respond as quick as you did last year (in a few hours!!). 

If no major magnetic disturbances (CME) are anticipated, I might choose the period March 12-16 when the CIR and high speed streams are expected to arrive.

2— ISR observation modes

Radar modes we used in the last years are very good, and I hope we continue using them. In particular, 
—  Arecibo: please keep taking the topside data. The data from the last year’s measurement have been extremely useful for the NASA/LWS topside study that I am involved with.
— Jicamarca: it was very unfortunate to have missed the super-storm class of event last year due to the untimely funding issues. Good luck for 2016 ;-).
—  EISCAT radars: even though we focus on the Asia-America meridian, the EISCAT data are  very important for our study, because high latitudes is the GLOBAL window to the solar wind and magnetosphere. 

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for your collaboration in the past. I am looking forward to another successful campaign!

Please stay tuned for my kick-off note.