Utilities for working with Incoherent Scatter Radar data, especially from Poker Flat AMISR.

We work with the complex I+jQ voltage samples, the lowest level data available from the radar (after integration of several pulses, perhaps on the 0.1 milliscond time scale).

Coming soon, simultaneous plots with high speed multi-camera synchronized video.

python setup.py develop

See Dropbox/aurora_data/Study Events folder for the dates you want.

Currently, raw ISR data files are not currently contained on Madrigal, you will have to email SRI staff to get them manually. Here is a limited selection of raw ISR data. It is indexed by date; under each date look for the ISR folder. You will typically want to download all four file types noted in the table below.

The "ion line" measurement bandwidth is ~ +/- 100 kHz from the radar center frequency, and contains the data necessary for volume estimates of Electron Density, Ion Temperature, Electron Temperature, and Ion Velocity, under certain assumptions for species composition vs. altitude. Some of the need to make assumptions about atmospheric composition can be mitigated with combined ion/plasma line inversion, among numerous other benefits. The plasma line returns have several MHz of bandwidth, but most of the energy is contained in narrower bands upshifted and downshifted from the center frequency.

No one radar waveform is optimal for all conditions, particularly with regard to the spatio-temporal sampling dilemma. Incoherent scattering from tiny particles gives exceedingly weak returns, and even with many billions of particles in the scattering volume, it takes well over ten thousand radar pulses to build a statistical basis for a usable autocorrelation function (ACF). The shape of the ACF is fitted to estimate certain plasma parameters, given assumptions on the particle population that may be violated, causing in some limited sets of cases either inaccurate fits or a failure to estimate the parameters.