SuperDARN

SuperDARN, short for Super Dual Auroral Radar Network, is an international collaboration that operates a network of high-frequency radars in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres to study the Earth's ionosphere and magnetosphere. Its primary aim is to observe large-scale ionospheric plasma convection in the high-latitude regions, providing insight into how the solar wind and magnetosphere couple to the ionosphere.

Most SuperDARN radars transmit in the high-frequency band, typically around 8 to 20 MHz, and measure the Doppler shift and backscatter power returned from ionospheric F-region irregularities. By combining line-of-sight velocity measurements from multiple radars and scanning broad fields of view, researchers construct two-dimensional maps of plasma convection spanning thousands of kilometers and varying magnetic latitude. Data are produced in near real time to support studies of space weather and magnetosphere–ionosphere coupling.

Products include Doppler velocities, spectral width and backscatter power, and gridded convection maps that are used in conjunction with other sensors such as magnetometers and incoherent scatter radars. Data assimilation frameworks, such as AMIE, integrate SuperDARN observations with additional measurements to produce global convection patterns and to improve space weather forecasts.

SuperDARN began as an international initiative in the late 1980s and 1990s and has since grown into a widely distributed network with sites across North America, Europe, Asia, and the Southern Hemisphere. The network operates under standardized data formats and analysis tools to facilitate cross-site comparisons and broad data sharing in the space physics community.