Ground-based infrastructure for improved space weather specification at low latitudes

Abstract

A notional deployment of a heterogeneous network of ground-based instrumentation is proposed. The scientific rationale for the deployment is to gain a comprehensive suite of measurements pertinent to improving our understanding of the longitudinal variability in the equatorial and low-latitude ionosphere/thermosphere system and the irregularities that can exist, therein. By pursuing a distributed ground-based deployment strategy, measurements over a large spatial region at sufficiently high temporal cadence can be achieved. The types of instruments proposed in the notional deployment are well-proven and reliable. It is suggested that significant effort in capacity building and operations would be required to successfully deploy and run such a network.