Equinox transition at the magnetic equator in Africa: analysis of ESF ionograms

International audienceWe study equatorial night-time F layer behaviour from quarter-hourly ionograms at Korhogo/Ivory Coast (9.2° N, 5° W, dip lat. −2.4°) during local Spring March–April 1995, declining solar flux period, according to the magnetic activity. The height and thickness of the F-layer are found to vary intensely with time and from one day to the next. At time of the equinox transition, by the end of March, a net change of the nightly height-time variation is observed. The regime of a single height peak phase before 22 March changes to up to three main F-layer height phases after 30 March, each associated to a dominant mechanism. The first phase is identified to the post-sunset E×B pulse, the second phase associated to a change in the wind circulation phenomenon and the third one attributed to pre-sunrise phenomena. The influence of the magnetic activity is identified by the increase in the second peak amplitude. After the 21 April magnetic-equinox period, the height-time morphology becomes more irregular suggesting meridional wind abatement. The initiation, the growth and the maintenance of ESF are explored in relation to these nightly variations. The Rayleigh-Taylor instability is clearly identified as main precursor phenomenon. This is followed by the P-type (F-layer peak spread) structures, the whole with no specific dependence on the magnetic activity and on the F-layer phases, in contrast to further I and F-type (Inside and Frequency spread) ESFs. We discuss our results in the light of recent advanced experiments in Peru and the pacific

Estimation conjointe de moments spectraux d'échos Doppler. Application au cyclone 'Georges'

L'objet de ce travail est l'estimation des moments spectraux d'échos Doppler. Dans le cas d'échos proches, les algorithmes classiques basés sur la transformée de Fourier donnent de mauvais résultats du fait de leur manque de résolution. Nous proposons et comparons l'utilisation des méthodes du maximum de vraisemblance stochastique et de sous-espaces (algorithme Weighted Pseudo-Subspace Fitting : WPSF) pour une estimation conjointe des moments spectraux. Les performances statistiques (théorique et empirique par simulations de Monte Carlo) des estimateurs sont comparées à la borne de Cramér-Rao. Les résultats des tests effectués sur les données réelles obtenues lors de la campagne d'étude d'orages, à Arecibo, en Septembre et Octobre 1998 confirment l'intérêt de l'approche proposée

The Climate-G testbed: towards large scale distributed data management for climate change

Climate-G is a large scale distributed testbed devoted to climate change research. It is an unfunded effort started in 2008 and involving a wide community both in Europe and US. The testbed is an interdisciplinary effort involving partners from several institutions and joining expertise in the field of climate change and computational science. Its main goal is to allow scientists carrying out geographical and cross-institutional data discovery, access, analysis, visualization and sharing of climate data. It represents an attempt to address, in a real environment, challenging data and metadata management issues. This paper presents a complete overview about the Climate-G testbed highlighting the most important results that have been achieved since the beginning of this project

Digital Divide in Sub-Saharan African Universities: Recommendations and Monitoring

The Digital Divide prevents Africa from taking advantages of new information technologies. One of the most urgent priorities is to bring the Internet in African Universities, Research, and Learning Centers to the level of other regions of the world. eGY-Africa, and the Sharing Knowledge Foundation are two bottom-up initiatives by scientists to secure better cyber-infrastructure and Internet facilities in Africa. Recommendations by the present scientific communities are being formulated at national, regional and international levels. The Internet capabilities are well documented at country level overall, but this is not the case at the University level. The snapshot of the Internet status in universities in 17 African countries, obtained by a questionnaire survey, is consistent with measures of Internet penetration in the corresponding country. The monitoring of Internet performance has been proposed to those African universities to provide an information base for arguing the need to improve the coverage for Africa. A pilot program is recommended that will start scientific collaboration with Europe in western Africa using ICT. The program will lay the foundations for the arrival of new technologies like Grids

Lightning Observation with the Strato-Tropospheric UHF and VHF radars at Arecibo.

Observations were carried out at National Astronomy and Ionospheric Center (NAIC) in Puerto Rico with a dual-frequency (46.8MHz/430MHz) Strato-Tropospheric radar associated with ground-based precipitation and electrostatic field measurements. This experimental set-up is devoted to provide wind measurements and detection of clear air turbulence. During a thunderstorm event, VHF-UHF radar receivers detected wide frequency band radiation emitted by lightning flashes. We present in this paper observations of a specific storm for which lightning radiation and ionized lightning channel were fortuitously and simultaneously detected. A bi-level structure of the lightning flash channel is observed and is consistent with observations obtained previously by other authors with VHF lightning mapper