Studies of the ionospheric climatology over the Brazilian region utilizing digital optical images from the OI 6300 Å airglow

• Grant number: 11/08023-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: June 01, 2011
• End date: May 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Geosciences
• Principal Investigator: Jose Humberto Andrade Sobral
• Grantee: Lucas Mioni Bastos
• Host Institution: Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE). Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (Brasil). São José dos Campos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The present candidate Lucas Mioni Bastos will be introduced to the field of space weather in the thermospheric/ionospheric domain focusing the ionospheric plasma bubbles phenomena that occur during both magnetically quiet and disturbed periods focusing at the same time the coupling processes that occur both locally and globally in the ionosphere-thermosphere-magnetosphere-interplanetary medium domain. The scientific activities of Lucas will occur in the INPE´s Aeronomy Division - DAE and he will be oriented by this Adviser and he will have scientific interaction with graduate students oriented by this Adviser of the INPE´s graduate course on Space Geophysics. The ionospheric data will come from a considerable large network of ionospheric instrumentation that are deployed and operating at several locations of Brazil (digital optical imager systems operating at São João do Cariri - PB in collaboration with INPE, Cachoeira Paulista - SP and Digisondes operating at São Luis, Fortaleza e Cachoeira Paulista). The activity plan for this junior scientific research (Bolsa IC) will consist of the following parts: 1. Get acknowledged about the INPE´s ionospheric equipment, data reading and processing (digital data acquisition, software utilizations etc), 2. Scientific reading oriented by this Adviser, 3. Learning the complex readings of the digital imagers data, 4. Learning to read Digisonde data, 5. Development of the research project, and 6. Report write up. (AU)