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EO Africa online course on EO for Marine and Coastal Resources Applications
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3rd ESA Carbon Science Cluster Meeting
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ESA Digital Twin Earth Components: Open Science Meeting
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William Edward Archer

How do auroral and subauroral flow channels form, and how do they influence the neutral atmosphere?

“I greatly appreciate the freedom provided by the ESA Living Planet Fellowship to choose which scientific threads to follow. Meeting other Fellows outside of my field-of-expertise was an incredible way to learn about the diverse advances being made with ESA satellite measurements.”

 

After the end of the Living Planet Fellowship, William was working as a Mission Scientist in Solar-Terrestrial Science at the Canadian Space Agency.

 

Project

  • The ionospheric signature of auroral and subauroral fast flows

    Living Planet Fellowship research project carried out by William Edward Archer. The European Space Agency Swarm satellite mission is advancing the cutting edge of ionospheric space physics. Combined high-resolution measurements of electron density, electron temperature, and electric and magnetic fields provide a robust picture of the electrodynamics of this energetic region. We will leverage the …

    Project detail

Scientific Papers

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Related News

  • Steve and the picket fence: a community story
    November 29, 2019

    Brought to the interest of the scientific community by the citizen Aurora Chasers group of amateur photographers and enthusiasts, the intriguing nighttime optical phenomenon which got its name “Steve” after an animated movie scene, got an honorary “Sky Wonders” coin, issued by the Canadian Coin & Currency. ESA Living Planet Fellow William Archer with the University …

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  • The vertical distribution of the optical emissions of a Steve and picket fence event
    October 11, 2019

    Steve is a nighttime optical phenomenon shown to be associated with intense subauroral ion drifts (SAID). The phenomenon is described as a purple band of light equatorward of aurora and it is sometimes accompanied by periodic green emissions termed “picket fence”. There are several hypotheses on the physical mechanisms that could be causing Steve and …

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  • The optical signature of intense subauroral ion drifts
    June 13, 2019

    New research published in Geophysical Research Letters investigates in-situ ionospheric plasma measurements from the European Space Agency’s Swarm satellites coincident with ground-based optical measurements of the phenomenon known as “Steve”. The authors show that Steve is consistently associated with narrow ionospheric flow channels called subauroral ion drifts (SAID). These observations are unusually intense with faster …

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