Collaborative Research: An Observational Network to Enable Investigations of Gravity-Wave and Storm-Time Impacts on the Mid-Latitude Thermosphere-Ionosphere

This project aims to enable upper atmospheric investigations by operating the red- and green-line imagers and Fabry-Perot Interferometers (FPIs) in the existing Mid-latitude All-sky-imaging Network for Geophysical Observation (MANGO) network to collect data in the current solar cycle. The MANGO network was developed with the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF) that observes the light from the airglow and aurora at night across the continental United States.

The earth’s upper atmosphere receives energy and momentum inputs from above and below, which manifest in the form of traveling atmospheric/ionospheric disturbances in the thermosphere-ionosphere region. The MANGO observations allow us to understand what energetic events in the lower atmosphere and the sun impact the upper atmosphere over the United States and how.

The MANGO observes the low-latitude aurora and waves, and measures the winds and temperature in the upper atmosphere. The data from these observations is made available in near-real time for scientific and public use. This project will continue to operate and maintain the 19 instruments that make up the MANGO network – 15 all-sky imagers and 4 FPIs, process and share the generated data, create higher-level data products, and interface with the scientific community to make progress in understanding the earth’s space weather.

Broader impacts of the project include open curated datasets with no embargo period, an open-source software repository maintained on GitHub, and training the next generation of scientists (post-docs and undergraduate students).

This five-year project is a collaboration between SRI, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the University of California, Berkeley. Under this project, the team will operate and maintain the MANGO network established through the NSF Distributed Array of Small Instruments (DASI) program, which includes both red- and green-line all sky imagers (15 at completion) and 4 Fabry-Perot Interferometers, maintain the data infrastructure to collect and share the data to the broader scientific community, create higher-level data products, and interface with the scientists and general public to advance our understanding of the geophysical and geomagnetic processes in the nighttime mid-latitude ionosphere.

The MANGO network enables the following scientific investigations: (1) determine spatial scales of the lower and upper thermospheric winds, (2) investigate vertical propagation of thermospheric variability relative to F-region dynamics, and (3) study the relative impact of lower atmospheric forcing with respect to magnetospheric forcing on the mid-latitude thermosphere and ionosphere.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.