ICTP African Workshop on GNSS and Space Weather

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Space Weather refers to conditions on the Sun, in the solar wind, magnetosphere, ionosphere and thermosphere, which can influence the performance and reliability of a variety of spaceborne and ground-based technological systems. This Workshop is intended to provide the participants with an introduction to ionospheric physics and the science of Space Weather, including basic knowledge on GNSS systems and their applications.

 

Space Weather is recognised as the cause of significant errors experienced by Global Satellite Navigation Systems (GNSS), and Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS). GNSS or SBAS signals, propagating from a satellite to the user receiver, pass through the ionosphere where they are subject to Space Weather effects.  Under these conditions, pseudorange errors and signals scintillations at the user receiver level may be present. These effects are more critical at low latitudes, where most of the developing countries are located. The purpose of this workshop is to give an introduction to the physics of the ionosphere and to provide a basic knowledge of GNSS systems and their applications. Particular focus will be given to Space Weather research with GNSS data.

Topics:
• Introduction to GNSS
• GNSS Applications
• The Sun-Earth Connection
• Space Weather
• Ionospheric Modeling
• Ionospheric Irregularities
• Ionospheric Total Electron Content

Directors:
P. DOHERTY, Boston College
S. GADIMOVA, UNOOSA-ICG
B. NAVA, ICTP
S. RADICELLA, ICTP

Local Organisers:
A. EMRAN, CRASTE-LF, Morocco

Speakers:
C. AMORY, Sorbonne University, France
A. COSTER, MIT, USA
P. DE SMET, EC
P. DOHERTY, Boston College, USA
S. GADIMOVA, UNOOSA-ICG
K. GROVES, Boston College, USA
B. NAVA, ICTP
S. RADICELLA, ICTP

Interested participants should register here.

 

About the organizers:

ICTP was founded in 1964 with the aim of fostering the growth of research in physical and mathematical sciences, especially in developing countries. The research of the Earth System Physics (ESP) section of ICTP includes anthropogenic climate change, natural climate variability and climate predictability over seasonal to decadal timescales. The ESP maintains and develops a fully coupled global ocean-atmosphere model and a state-of-the-art regional climate model. Relevant to this call, both models have been applied to research problems in Africa and are used by a number of African research centres. ICTP also researches statistical and dynamical techniques for downscaling grid-scale global and regional model output to the local scale. ESP participates in current European projects ENSEMBLES, CECILIA, WATCH and ACQWA.

Of particular relevance to HEALTHY FUTURES, ESP has a central role in a new EU-FP7 project called QWECI starting in 2010, which will investigate the potential of monthly to seasonal forecasts of malaria and RVF in Malawi, Senegal and Ghana. As part of this project ICTP will gain experience in the techniques required to maximize skill in prediction of parameters relevant for driving dynamics disease models, and will gain experience in the techniques required to couple meteorological forecasts with dynamic disease models. This research is of direct relevance to HEALTHY FUTURES (WP2 present climate, WP3 dynamic disease models, and WP4 future climate scenarios) and implies that the research planned in the present proposal can build on an existing project.

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