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Research | Polar research | Antarctic research - Ionospheric radar
Ionospheric radar in Kerguelen island
High-frequency ionospheric radar is located in Kerguelen Island (49.35 S, 70.26E) in the Antarctic. The field-of-view of this radar partly overlaps with the field-of-view of its Japanese radar pair on Syowa base. These radars are a part of the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) which consists of nine radars in the northern hemisphere and six in the southern hemisphere.
Together the SuperDARN radars cover most of the northern and southern polar regions and are designed for studying the Earth's polar ionospheres, for example the electric fields associated with the northern lights. The Kerguelen-Syowa pair is particularly dedicated to simultaneous measurements between the two hemispheres, i.e. conjugate studies. The magnetic conjugates of their field-of-views map over Scandinavia and overlap with another SuperDARN radar pair, one of which is situated in Iceland and the other in Hankasalmi in Finland.
The Kerguelen radar was constructed in co-operation between France, Italy, Sweden and Finland, and was fully operational in January 2000. The radar is operated by Laboratoire de Physique et Chemie de l'Environnement of Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (LPCE/CNRS) in France. In addition to the financial support of the construction, researchers at the Geophysical Research Division of the Finnish Meteorological Institute will participate the investigations of the still largely unknown phenomena of conjugacy.
Further information:
, p. +358-9-1929 4654
, p. +358-9-1929 4637
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