Polar Aeronomy and Radio Science (PARS) Summer School

For the next five years, the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks will host a summer school program in polar aeronomy and radio science (PARS). It will be held during a two-week period, usually in late July and early August. The school will follow the format that has been established over the last six years. The two weeks will be spent in a series of lectures, field trips, and experiments, at the space physics research facilities located around interior Alaska. The school has started out each year with a week in the Fairbanks area with lectures at the Geophysical Institute, and tours of the Geophysical Institute, the Poker Flat Research Range, and the HIgh Power Auroral Stimulation (HIPAS) ionospheric heating facility. Student experiments scheduled for the facilities in the Fairbanks area have been carried out during the first week of the school. For the second week of the school, the group has relocated to the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) Ionospheric Observatory at Gakona, Alaska, for additional tours and experiments. The experiments conducted during the school cover a variety of topics, including (1) observations of noctilucent clouds, (2) generation of extreme low frequency and very low frequency radio waves using the HAARP transmitter to modulate the auroral electrojet, and (3) generation of field-aligned density irregularities. Several students have presented their experiment results at major scientific workshops, and journal articles have been published on the results from PARS summer school experiments. The primary motivation for the summer school is to provide an opportunity for students to study the upper atmosphere and ionosphere at polar latitudes with practical experience built into the learning process. There is a need for more trained scientists and engineers with knowledge of the special effects that occur in the ionosphere at high latitudes. The summer school is provided to attract students with exceptional talent to become more familiar with this exciting area of study. The summer school has brought student-faculty pairs from universities around the country to Alaska.