New Space Weather Data Products from SuperDARN

Raymond A. GREENWALD
Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory, USA.

At JHU/APL, we have been combining near real-time data from the northern-hemisphere SuperDARN radars to produce global maps of convection in the high-latitude ionosphere. We have placed these maps on the Internet as a space weather product and have received positive comments from the scientific community. The maps have raised community awareness of the dynamics of the high-latitude convection patterns and the potential of SuperDARN. The PIs of the southern-hemisphere radars plan to take similar steps in the near future. There are however other valuable space weather products that might be available from SuperDARN. One of these is global-scale maps of ionospheric absorption. The SuperDARN receivers can be used in a riometer mode, enabling us to monitor the level of galactic noise and therefore the degree of D-region absorption. This information can be used in the scientific interpretation of the SuperDARN data, e.g. in evaluating whether a loss of backscatter is due to ionospheric absorption of our signal or to an absence of irregularities. Another product might be a visual condensation of frequency usage versus backscatter/range categorization versus local time (radar). This tool could help in frequency selection. Most of these tools could be introduced with at only modest changes to our operating procedures and would benefits ourselves and other users of HF frequencies. In this paper, we present some preliminary work that we have done in this direction.

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