lundi 8 avril 2019, par Aziza Bounhir (LPHEA, Université Cadi Ayyad, Maroc)
Mardi 16 avril 2019 à 14h00 , Lieu : Salle de rĂ©union du bâtiment 14
Oukaimeden Observatory (31.2 N ; 8 W ; magnetic latitude 22.7 N ; altitude 3700 m), in the Atlas mountain in Morocco hosts an experiment dedicated to space weather and especially the study of the thermosphere/ionosphere coupling. The equipment consists of a Fabry-Perrot Interferometer (FPI), a wide-angle camera and a GPS station. Thermospheric winds and temperature as well as ionospheric structures that develop at an altitude of 250 km are produced along with the total electronic content of the ionosphere.
Space weather is a new research field in our laboratory LPHEA (Laboratoire de Physique des Hautes Energies Astronomie et Astrophysique) at Cadi Ayyad university of Marrakech, since approximately 2014, when we dedicated a school to this topic. In 2010 an ISWI delegation came to Morocco in order to implement in the African continent experiments dedicated to space weather as it is not covered with in situ data. As a result, a collaboration between Cadi Ayyad university and the university of Illinois took place through the implementation of the camera and the FPI that belong to a network in the American sector.
The subject matter of this talk is the presentation of the results obtained, that consist mainly on the thermospheric dynamics in quiet and disturbed conditions above Oukaimeden Obervatory. We have established the climatologies of the thermospheric winds and temperature, their seasonal behavior and their sensitivity to the solar cycle. The effect of geomagnetic storms on FPI data are also presented and a classification of the geomagnetic storms observed. The camera data and TEC measurements are also used to explore a certain aspect of the thermophere/ionophere coupling.
