Airborne monitoring of space weather and radioactivity

The sun emits high energy particles, some of which have the capacity - particularly during episodes of disturbed Space Weather - to cause damage to the natural and artificial world. In the natural world, as the particles enter the atmosphere, they release electric charge from the air, which it is thought may have an effect on ice and water clouds in the atmosphere. To investigate this effect, which may have a small effect on climate, measurements of the charges generated at the same levels in the atmosphere where the clouds form are needed. A cost-effective way of doing this is to use a weather balloon which has been specially equipped to detect the high energy particles, as such balloon-carried measurement system are released by meteorological services around the world regularly every day.

This project will test out a new low cost approach to harnessing weather balloons for the high energy particle measurements, which will allow many new measurements to be made at little additional expense to that already invested in the weather balloon network. Some electronic systems are required for this which will be developed specially, but the method to be studied is so cheap as to be disposable as needed for a non-recoverable weather balloon. After the electronic circuits have been developed and tested using radioactivity available in a laboratory, a series of real test flights will be made. By choosing two locations at different latitudes, the effect of the earth's magnetic field on changing the energy of the particles which get down into the atmosphere can be used to test the new sensor.

An additional aspect is that radioactivity in the atmosphere above the surface can also be measured simply with the same instrumentation: as these balloons can be released easily from different places, this provides a capability to respond to nuclear accidents and terrorism, in monitoring the dispersal of the hazardous material without the complication of a powered aircraft.

In Russia an important measurement sequence of high energy atmospheric particles has been made using balloon systems since 1957, but, as the instruments become obsolete, this is not expected to be sustained within Russian science funding. By adapting the balloon measurement systems already used by meteorological services everyday, measurements of the high energy particles will be able to be continued cheaply, as well as providing the opportunity to monitor natural radioactivity for which there is an ever-heightened awareness.

The impact of this work will be in providing new capability where none previously existed in the UK and cost-effective increased utilisation of established measurement networks nationally and, potentially, internationally. Radiosondes with research sensors have shown themselves able to be deployed during national emergencies (for example during the iceland volcano incident by the PI and CoI), hence extension of their capability to radioactivity measurement facilitates a new potential response to radioactivity released maliciously or accidentally.

DSTL, the British Navy and Vaisala have all expressed interest in the use of novel sensors on radiosondes, as users of radiosondes are interested in carrying additional sensors on their standard flights because of the value-added aspect. The new sensor systems to be employed offers spin-out potential for commercial activities, both with the radiosonde manufacturer Vaisala and the UK company BIRAL, based in Bristol with whom the Reading scientists have well-established links.

In addition, the UK Met Office is increasingly involved in Space Weather analysis, since it became identified on the National Risk Register. Through the work proposed, the measurement network already run for meteorology can be extended to provide new information on energetic particles in the atmosphere arising from Space Weather.