2024 Workshop: Distributed Observatory Investigations

This session is dedicated to presenting and discussing recent scientific results obtained with distributed observatories (DO) and investigations that combine space-based measurements and the innovative use of DO. These observatories can consist of networks of GNSS receivers, all-sky imagers, magnetometers, Fabry-Perot instruments, coherent radars, ionosondes, and oblique sounder receivers that are being used to probe the low and middle-latitude ionospheres. These networks of large and small instruments have the advantage of probing regions and, in other cases, capturing the global states of the thermosphere and ionosphere and can lead to the nowcasting and forecasting of the ionosphere dynamics and the onset of plasma irregularities. For this reason, they are of crucial importance in advancing our knowledge of plasma electrodynamics and its stability. A network of instruments can also corroborate or provide additional insight into numerical simulations. This workshop welcomes presentations on the use of networks of instruments to search for the causes of ESF, such as atmospheric inputs, including traveling ionospheric disturbances (TID) that can seed plasma bubbles and the role of Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) events that enhance the semidiurnal lunar tide and modify the electrodynamics of the E and F regions and create systematic variations of the migrating/non-migrating tides. In addition, intense magnetic storms bring prompt penetrating electric fields that map to the equator and a disturbance dynamo field that can destabilize or mitigate ionospheric disturbances. The observation capability provided by distributed observatories, designed and built in the last ten years, is unprecedented and needs to be described in detail. This session will also explore what is required to fully utilize all these resources to conceive, design, and construct a forecasting tool for plasma electrodynamics and scintillations at low and mid latitudes.