A snowy scene

It is photo-Friday and today we're featuring another snowy scene from KAIRA. This one is taken from the RF-container looking back across the HBA array. The site office (the "barracks") is on the left.

KAIRA site office and HBA array. (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Day three of the Space Weather Science Camp

Another report from our KAIRA correspondent, Esa Turunen, in Longyearbyen, Svalbard.


The Finnish students Science Camp in Longyearbyen had a day of full action yesterday in the beautiful auditorium "Lassegrotta" of the University Center in Svalbard (UNIS). After hearing lectures about the the EISCAT radars and ionospheric measurement techniques as well as about the coming ESR experiment by the Finnish scientists Esa and Noora who supervise the group, the students were introduced to space physics in Norway by Kjartan Olafsson from University of Bergen, and naturally to UNIS and student life at 78 degrees north by the UNIS director Ole-Arve Misund.

But the real action started when the students produced their own space weather forecast for the coming radar experiment time at 14-16 UT on Tuesday 22 October 2013. And yes! There will be aurora, everyone concluded. Only moderate activity, but aurora should be visible in the EISCAT Svalbard radar experiment, little bit south of Longyearbyen. So one should tilt the antenna to south. Some hectic calculations were done, and the suitable antenna elevation was selected by the "PI team", which meant all the students in the auditorium. The radar experiment itself was run at the EISCAT Svalbard radar site by the "engineering team", aurora expert Noora and the main coordinating teacher Risto, while the students were seeing radar data being accumulated on the big screen plots in the auditorium. As the aurora signatures appeared on the radar plots, all possible space weather data was followed carefully. As a bonus the students could also follow the Tromso radar and the active heating experiment conducted there at the same time. A continuous Skype connection between the engineering and PI teams was connected to the loudspeakers of the auditorium and made all the discussion on data very lively. The skies were cloudy, so we did not get any visual observation of aurora.

Professor Fred Sigernes opened the Wednesday morning at Kjell Henriksen Observatory,
having a very complete lecture about aurora research. (Photo: E. Turunen)

UNIS director Ole-Arve Misund showed us the slightly different student logistics
department at UNIS, full gear for ever field trip on Svalbard.   (Photo: E. Turunen)

During the day there was live data being taken and used in the lecture. Skype connection between the ESR site and UNIS auditorium was in a small iPod. Noora Partamies was supervising us on what we see on the data screens (shown in the background).  (Photo: E. Turunen)

Director Misund also told about student life in the real north. Here
Finnish UNIS students make a sauna sledging party in the traditional
annual Longyearbyen downhill event.    (Photo: E. Turunen)

Today the students will have their field trip day, visiting both the Kjell Henriksen observatory and the EISCAT Svalbard Radar site.

Bahir Dar winter school 2013

Currently, four members of the KAIRA/SGO team are in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, for the winter school 2013. The objective of the school is to design an educational module on mathematical radar theory for Bahir Dar University. SGO has a long history with BDU, including the fact that the BDU rector Baylie Damtie has done his PhD in SGO team about EISCAT data analysis.

A number of big radar and other infrastructure projects are going on in Bahir Dar. For example US Air Force will install a VHF coherent backscatter radar in January 2014. Bahir Dar is an ideal place for Equatorial studies, as it is located at the geomagnetic Equator.

More info on the school at http://inverse-problems.org/ws2013/.  School photos below by Mikko Orispää.

Lassi talking about priors.

Abiyot et al.

Computer class

Antti giving introduction to space physics.

Markku asking questions about basic signal processing theorems.

Endalkachew and Markku talking radar problems.

Group photo taken after the Ethiopia-Finland football match. Final score 4-2, all-time score 2-1 for Ethiopia.

Day two of the Space Weather Science Camp

On Monday the Finnish students sat down in the lecture hall at UNIS, University Centre in Svalbard, for their first day during the Space Weather Science Camp in Longyearbyen . For 3 hours they listened to each other, instead of the teachers. The student groups had prepared as home work 4 thematic essays for learning the background and the processes leading to Space Weather events. And now these were presented to the audience, the fellow students. Of course the teachers were there, too, kind of acting as judges as if being in the Idols competition, giving their comments and remarks on the works and presentations. All groups were applauded twice for their extensive preparation. The rare cases where preparation was inadequate, were handled by stylish slides and summaries, or creativeness by the newly established stand-up comics entertainment on physics (quadruple applauds…).

Walking to UNIS for the first lecture, fresh snow in Longyearbyen. (Photo: E. Turunen)

How do bees orientate using the magnetic field of the Earth? (Photo: E. Turunen)

In their meeting afterwards, the teachers concluded that all groups had done serious work, and would have basic knowledge to handle the real action on Tuesday. Then the program of the Science Camp includes forecasting space weather for the evening and the incoherent scatter experiment using the EISCAT Svalbard Radar. Will the students get aurora in their radar beam? We will see tonight.

Space Weather Science Camp

Space Weather Science Camp for High-School students is a new activity in Finland. On Monday 21 Oct 2013 seventeen physics students from High-Schools in Oulu, Hämeenlinna, Järvenpää and Helsinki will arrive in Longyearbyen for a 5-day Science Camp. The theme space weather is not new to these students. They have already constructed their own magnetometers with the help of experts at Finnish Meteorological Institute and Aalto University. They also visited the Metsähovi Radio Telescope and Finnish Geodetic Institute before the trip to Svalbard. As the highlight of the Svalbard Science Camp, the students will run their own incoherent scatter radar experiment with the EISCAT Svalbard Radar on Tuesday, 22 October. They will be supervised by 2 scientists traveling with the group, the aurora specialist Dr. Noora Partamies from Finnish Meteorological Institute and director Esa Turunen from Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory. Naturally experts at UNIS in Longyearbyen will give introductions about arctic research, including a visit to the Kjell Henriksen Observatory.

The active teachers Risto Matveinen, Jarmo Sirviö, Pasi Ketolainen, and Ursula Ahvenisto used to bring their students to CERN for science education. Their activity with CERN is still ongoing and now enhanced by visits to Nordic Optical Telescope and from year 2012 to EISCAT Scientific Association. The Space Weather Science Camp 2012 included a visit to Andoya Rocket Range in Norway and in Sweden to EISCAT HQ, Esrange Rocket Range. A successfull remotely controlled EISCAT experiment was run from the auditorium at IRF in Kiruna, supervised by EISCAT HQ scientists Drs. Ingemar Häggström and Anders Tjulin.

This year the students will have a high chance of seeing aurora, depending on weather of course. A solar wind stream is expected to hit Earth on 21 October. We wish the students all the success in their measurements and an unforgettable experience in the high north.

The weather turns

On the 14th October, the weather at Kilpisjärvi turned. We had a fall of snow that didn't go away and the temperature dropped below 0 degrees celsius and has not made it back into the positive temperatures since. Furthermore, on the morning of the first heavy snows, there was a dramatic scene with firery dawn light churning between the sombre mountains and turbulent clouds.

A firery dawn tries to get through cloud and snow. (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

Rainbow over KAIRA

We often feature photographs of astronomical phenomena. Many of these are quite rare and are particular to the polar regions of the planet. But today we have one that more common to many people the world over. The lovely delicate colours of the rainbow.

Rainbow over KAIRA (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)