ICESTAR/IHY
type: Concept
in scheme: projects
definition: Short Title: ICESTAR/IHY Project URL: http://www.ipy-id63.org/ Proposal URL: http://classic.ipy.org/development/eoi/proposal-details.php?id=63 ICESTAR/IHY will coordinate multinational research on solar-generated events which affect the composition and dynamics of the atmosphere in the terrestrial polar areas. The activity brings together two complementary programmes: the International Heliophysical Year (IHY) (EoI 172) is an international programme to coordinate the use of current and forthcoming spacecraft missions with ground-based observatory instruments to study the Sun's influence on the heliosphere, including effects at the Earth; ICESTAR (EoI 554), endorsed by SCAR, aims to coordinate research on magnetospheric and ionospheric responses to solar inputs, with emphases on the networking of ground-based instrument networks and the study of inter-hemispheric relationships. The proposed joint project includes the collective effort of 24 international consortia which submitted their Expressions of Intent (EoIs) to the IPY call in January 2005. Between them, these groups already run a large body of instrumentation in both the Arctic and the Antarctic to support this research programme. Several consortia are also proposing to install new instruments in the polar regions to significantly improve the spatial coverage and resolution and to provide pairs of geomagnetically conjugate observations from both the hemispheres. The resulting observations and value-added data products will be used together with state-of-the-art models and simulations to improve our quantitative understanding of the near-Earth space environment. The scientific goals of the 24 EoIs can be categorised under the following three main themes: (i) Coupling processes between the different atmospheric layers and their connection with the solar activity: E.g. effects of mid-atmospheric circulation and extreme solar activity on the content of stratospheric ozone and minor constituents, variations of the …

G - I
type: Concept