The attitude of a sounding rocket launched in the DELTA (Dynamics and Energetics of the Lower Thermosphere in Aurora) campaign was determined with IR horizon sensors and geomagnetic sensors. Since the payload was separated into two portions, two sets of attitude sensors were needed. A new IR sensor was developed for the present experiment, and found the zenith-angle of the spin-axis of the rocket with an accuracy of 2°. By combining information obtained by both type of sensors, the absolute attitudes were determined. The auroral green line emission rate was measured by a photometer on board the same rocket launched under active auroral conditions, and the energy flux of the auroral particle precipitation was estimated.

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The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) DELTA rocket experiment, successfully launched from Andøya at 0033 UT on December 13, 2004, supported by ground based optical instruments, primarily 2 Fabry-Perot Interferometers (FPIs) located at Skibotn, Norway (69.3°N, 20.4°E) and the KEOPS Site, Esrange, Kiruna, Sweden (67.8°N, 20.4°E). Both these instruments sampled the 557.7 nm lower thermosphere atomic oxygen emission and provided neutral temperatures and line-of-sight wind velocities, with deduced vector wind patterns over each site. All sky cameras allow contextual auroral information to be acquired. The proximity of the sites provided overlapping fields of view, adjacent to the trajectory of the DELTA rocket. This allowed independent verification of the absolute temperatures in the relatively quiet conditions early in the night, especially important given the context provided by co-located EISCAT ion temperature measurements which allow investigation of the likely emission altitude of the passive FPI measurements. The results demonstrate that this altitude changes from 120 km pre-midnight to 115 km post-midnight. Within this large scale context the results from the FPIs also demonstrate smaller scale structure in neutral temperatures, winds and intensities consistent with localised heating. These results present a challenge to the representation of thermospheric variability for the existing models of the region.

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The rotational temperature and number density of molecular nitrogen (N₂) in the lower thermosphere were measured by the N₂ temperature instrument onboard the S-310-35 sounding rocket, which was launched from Andøya at 0:33 UT on 13 December 2004, during the Dynamics and Energetics of the Lower Thermosphere in Aurora (DELTA) campaign. The rotational temperature measured at altitudes between 95 and 140 km, which is expected to be equal to neutral temperature, is much higher than neutral temperature from the Mass Spectrometer Incoherent Scatter (MSIS) model. Neutral temperatures in the lower thermosphere were observed using the auroral green line at 557.7 nm by two Fabry-Perot Interferometers (FPIs) at Skibotn and the Kiruna Esrange Optical Platform System site. The neutral temperatures derived from the look directions closest to the rocket correspond to the rotational temperature measured at an altitude of 120 km. In addition, a combination of the all-sky camera images at 557.7 nm observed at two stations, Kilpisjärvi and Muonio, suggests that the effective altitude of the auroral arcs at the time of the launch is about 120 km. The FPI temperature observations are consistent with the in situ rocket observations rather than the MSIS model.

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The sounding rocket for the DELTA (Dynamics and Energetics of the Lower Thermosphere in Aurora) campaign was successfully launched from Andoya at 00:33 UT on Dec 13, 2004. Though it was cloudy at the time of launch, theWeber Na lidar was operating intermittently between 20:00 UT and 23:30 UT on Dec 12, observing Na density, temperature and meridional wind between 80 and 100 km. Throughout the lidar observations, we observed significant small (λ_z<5 km) and medium-scale (λ_z≈8-15 km) wave activity producing significant wind and temperature shears. There were unusually large (up to 10 m/s and 10 K amplitudes) perturbations of the vertical wind and temperature profiles at 21 UT with a 3 km vertical wavelength that was much stronger in the vertical beam than in the north beam. The atmosphere appeared to become more active as the launch time approached. During the last interval with data, at -23:20 UT, Dec. 12th, the lidar profiles revealed a gravity wave in both beams with a magnitude of 5-10 K in temperature and approximately 5 km vertical wavelength. The large background shear plus the wave perturbation produced regions with potential convective instability at multiple altitudes.

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Japanese sounding rocket “S-310-35” was launched from Andøya Rocket Range in Norway on December 13, 2004 during Dynamics and Energetics of the Lower Thermosphere in Aurora (DELTA) campaign, in which the rocket-borne in-situ measurements and ground-based measurements were coordinated to conduct a comprehensive observation of the upper atmospheric response against the auroral energy input. The Fast Langmuir Probe (FLP) was installed on the sounding rocket to study thermal structure and energy balance of the plasma by measuring the electron temperature in the polar lower ionosphere. The FLP observations indicate that the electron temperatures were found to be remarkably high in an altitude range from 106 km to 114 km during the ascending phase of the rocket. The lowest part of this high temperature region might be affected by artificial electron beam which was generated by the N₂ temperature instrument on the same rocket. On the other hand, a small increase of the electron temperature was observed at the altitude from 114 to 119 km in the descending phase. This is possibly the first time that both the temperature increase and density fluctuation that may be caused by the Farley-Buneman instability were detected by in-situ observation.

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The direct observation of electron number density was successfully carried out using an impedance probe onboard the S310-35 sounding rocket during the DELTA (Dynamics and Energetics of the Lower Thermosphere in Aurora) campaign, which provided the altitude profile along the rocket trajectory in a diffuse aurora. The plasma density profile showed clear density enhancements due to the auroral precipitation as well as artificial ionizations induced by the electron beam injection. The enhanced ionization due to the electron beam experiment was too high to be determined by means of the detection of the UHR (Upper Hybrid Resonance) frequencies. To overcome this difficulty, SHR (Sheath Resonance) frequency and sheath capacitance values were used to deduce the plasma density in the artificially ionized region. Based on the SHR analysis method, we were able to determine the maximum density to be 2 · 106 cm-3 at the altitude of 98.9 km; this measurement was ascribed to the artificial ionization by the 1-keV electron beam in comparison with the results of particle detector instrument on-board the S310-35. The data analysis of the sheath capacitance was able to distinguish the natural ionization region from the artificial one. The impedance probe measurement was able to evaluate the ionospheric conductivities which have important properties for evaluating the Joule heating process in the thermosphere. Both Pedersen and Hall conductivities showed distinctive enhancement around an altitude of 128 km which were due to the auroral particle precipitation.

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This paper reports on properties of energetic electrons observed by the Auroral Particle Detector (APD) on board the sounding rocket S-310-35, which was launched from Andøya Rocket Range, Norway, at 0033:00 UT on 13 December 2004 during the DELTA campaign. The APD was designed to measure energy spectra of energetic electrons in the range of 3.5 to 65 keV every 10 ms using avalanche photodiodes. The measurement was done at altitudes of 90-140 km (apogee height of the rocket flight), which corresponded to the collisional interaction region of precipitating electrons with the atmospheric constituents. The overall profile of energetic electron precipitations was consistent with auroral images taken from the ground. The downward fluxes almost always exceeded those of upward electrons, and the ratio of downward to upward fluxes increased with energy and also with altitude. This is reasonably understood in terms of the effect of collisions between the energetic electrons and the atmospheric constituents. An interesting feature in energy spectra of precipitating electrons is the existence of non-thermal electrons at higher energies, regardless of inside or outside of auroral arcs. In order to predict the incident downward spectra at the top of the atmosphere, we have applied an analytic method of Luhmann (1976) to evaluate the collisional effect on the electron spectra. As a result, most of the observed energy spectra of precipitating electrons are well expressed by kappa distributions with the thermal energy of a few hundreds of eV and kappa of 5-8, while the spectrum inside a strong arc is better fitted by the sum of a Maxwellian distribution on the lower energy side and a power law at higher energies. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first direct and reliable measurement of energy spectra of electrons in the 10-keV energy range in the auroral ionosphere.

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Japanese sounding rocket “S-310-35” was launched from Andøya Rocket Range in Norway on December 13, 2004 during Dynamics and Energetics of the Lower Thermosphere in Aurora (DELTA) campaign, in which the rocket-borne in-situ measurements and ground-based measurements were coordinated to carry out a comprehensive observation of the thermospheric response against the auroral energy input. The instruments on board the rocket successfully performed their measurements during the flight, and thereby the temperature and density of molecular nitrogen, auroral emission rate, and the ambient plasma parameters were derived. Simultaneous measurements by the ground-based instruments provided neutral wind, neutral temperature, the auroral images and the ionospheric parameters near the rocket trajectory. This paper introduces science objectives, experimental outline, and preliminary scientific results of the DELTA campaign and explains geophysical condition at the time of the rocket launch, while the companion papers in this special issue describe more detailed results from each instrument.

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The observations made by Fabry-Perot interferometers (FPIs), radars, and satellites have indicated that large vertical motion in the polar region is occasionally generated in the thermosphere associated with auroral activities. However, the behavior of the vertical wind is often very complicated, and the cause of the vertical wind has not been explained by auroral heating or by ion-neutral drag alone. It has been pointed out that a background horizontal flow is likely to significantly alter the dynamics of the neutral atmosphere near an auroral arc. Recent observations have also suggested that strong downward motion is generated in the vicinity of an auroral arc. To study the thermospheric dynamics near a local heating region embedded in a large-scale horizontal flow, a twodimensional numerical simulation of the thermospheric dynamics has been performed. It is found that interaction of local heating and strong horizontal flow could play an important role in generating vertical motion near an auroral arc. The simulation results indicate that for a horizontal wind speed larger than about 300 m/s, a steady wave-like structure of the neutral wind is formed within and downstream of the heated region. For a horizontal wind speed less than about 300 m/s, on the other hand, no significant vertical motion is generated outside the heated region. This process might account for at least some of the observed features of vertical motion within and outside an auroral arc.

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This paper aims at describing the ionospheric conditions during the DELTA (Dynamics and Energetics of the Lower Thermosphere in Aurora) campaign period based on EISCAT radar observations conducted at Tromsø (69.6°N, 19.2°E). We conducted EISCAT UHF radar observations on December 5 and from December 8 to December 13, 2004 with a beam-scanning mode for a total of 74 hours. Except for December 8 during a 2 hr interval operation, we operated the EISCAT UHF radar for 12 hour intervals everyday to make it possible to derive semidiurnal tidal amplitudes and phases in the lower thermosphere. Observed electron densities and derived electric fields by the EISCAT UHF radar indicate that magnetospheric activity was high during the period from December 5 to 13 except for the night of December 13. Derived semidiurnal amplitudes during December 9-12, 2004 exhibited a day to day variation at and below 110 km, while the corresponding phase was relatively stable over the four days except for the zonal component on December 12. Neutral and electron temperatures measured by the DELTA rocket were compared with neutral/ion and electron temperatures from the EISCAT UHF radar observations. Comparison of neutral/ion temperatures show some agreement, while poor agreements were found for the electron temperature. Possible causes of the discrepancy are discussed.

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The global static electric field in the global atmospheric electric circuit resulting from mesospheric sprite discharges is inferred from a coupled model for the global static and dynamic electric fields derived from Maxwell's equations. It is found that the global atmospheric electric field from individual sprites is ≤ 44 mV/m, which can be measured with conventional ULF/ELF radio wave antennas at frequencies ≤ 4 Hz.

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Global warming is becoming a reality, with growing evidence that anthropogenic activity on our planet is starting to influence our climate (IPCC, 2001). Due to the increase in significant weather-related disasters in recent years, it is important to investigate the role of global warming on such changes. In this paper we attempt to estimate the long term trends in lightning activity over tropical Africa during the past 50 years, using upper tropospheric water vapor as a proxy for regional lightning activity. We use the NCAR/NCEP reanalysis product available for the period 1948 to the present to estimate the long term trends in lightning activity. Similarity between the long term African lightning variability and observed rainfall and river discharge variability are demonstrated. Since 1950 the inferred lightning activity over Africa shows significant variability, reaching a maximum during the 1960s, followed by a decrease in activity during the following 30 years.

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To seek the variability of the oceanic subtropical gyre on interannual and longer time scales we have conducted numerical experiments with a two-layer quasigeostrophic model in a square basin bounded by no-slip walls. We find that when the amplitude of annually periodic wind forcing is increased, the time series of the total energy exhibit a transition to chaos in such a manner that the response frequency constitutes a quasi-devil's staircase against the forcing amplitude; in particular, the n-cycles appear in descending order of n. The low-frequency modes may thus be produced by seasonal winds. Since, however, the power of the subharmonics is much weaker than that with the forcing frequency, their energy would be concealed by noise in the presence of stochastic wind forcing. The present result is in contrast with the case of the time-independent forcing in which we observe the intrinsic frequencies probably associated with the wave propagation, frequency locking and a cascade of period-doubling bifurcations.

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Parametric decays of a circularly polarized wave propagating along a constant magnetic field in an electronpositron plasma are studied. Fully relativistic effects on the particle velocity in the wave field are considered, as well as kinetic effects in the parallel direction, by means of a one-dimensional relativistic Vlasov equation. In this approximation, a dispersion relation is found for the parametric decays which describes the coupling between normal modes of the system, namely electromagnetic sideband modes and Langmuir waves.

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We study frequency variation of a coherent whistler-mode wave in a homogeneous magnetic field by a selfconsistent simulation model. Simulation results show that an injected whistler-mode wave packet grows due to an instability driven by temperature anisotropy and the amplified wave packet triggers emissions with frequency shift during its propagation. We clarify that the resonant currents J_E and J_B due to the nonlinear wave-particle interaction play significant roles in both wave growth and frequency variation. Based on the simulation results, we show that the range of the frequency shift in a homogeneous system is quantitatively estimated by the trapping frequency V_T of trapped electrons; in a case that the original frequency of the wave packet is 0.62Ω_e and V_T = 4.05 × 10^-2c, the lower and upper frequencies are estimated to be 0.565Ω_e and 0.685Ω_e, respectively. The results of the present study reveal that the role of nonlinear trapping is significant in the elementary process of VLF triggered emissions in the equatorial region of the magnetosphere.

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The nonlinear evolution of low-frequency electrostatic oscillations in a magnetized plasma consisting of protons, electrons and oxygen ion beams has been studied. The fluid equations have been used for the oxygen beam, whereas the Boltzmann distributions are used for the protons and electrons. The coupled system of equations are reduced to a single nonlinear differential equation in the rest frame of the propagating wave for any direction of propagation with respect to the ambient magnetic field. This nonlinear differential equation is solved numerically for the parameters charateristic of the auroral acceleration region. Depending on the wave Mach number, proton and oxygen ion concentrations, and driving electric field, the numerical solutions show a range of periodic solutions varying from sinusoidal to sawtooth and highly spiky waveforms. The effects of the plasma parameters, in particular the oxygen ion concentration and the proton temperature on the evolution of the nonlinear waves are examined. The results from the model are compared with satellite observations.

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