*************************** ** THE GEM MESSENGER ** *************************** Volume 7, Number 32 July 28, 1997 ------------------------------------ Polar Cap Observatory (PCO) - URGENT ------------------------------------ From Joe Salah (jes at newton.haystack.edu) Dear Colleagues, The Polar Cap Observatory (PCO) concept and its science rationale have been developed by our community over the past ten years, and funds for the construction of an incoherent scatter radar and optical instrumentation are in the FY98 budget request under the NSF Major Research Equipment at the level of $25M. To enable the necessary observations at the polar cap, the location of the PCO has been selected to be near the geomagnetic north pole at Resolute Bay, Canada (75 deg N, 95 deg W geographic, 84 deg N magnetic). The NSF FY98 budget, including the PCO, has cleared the House of Representatives budget review and approval process. During the past week, however, the Senate Appropriations Committee has directed the NSF to construct the PCO radar and locate it at the DoD ionospheric research site at Gakona, Alaska (62 deg N, 145 deg W geographic, 63 deg N magnetic) where the HAARP heating facility is being constructed. Excerpts from the Senate bill relevant to this issue are appended to this message. This unfortunate event is outlined in an article expected to appear in the next issue of Science magazine [see also Science on-line at http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/html/970722b.htm]. The NSF is working with Congress to explain the scientific rationale for the required PCO location, but our community needs to express its opinion strongly and unequivocally about the importance of the Resolute Bay location and the inability of our polar cap scientific objectives to be accomplished from Gakona, Alaska. Within our Congressional appropriations system, the next opportunity for making changes to the NSF funding bill will be at the House-Senate budget conference committee meeting scheduled for September, and we are in contact with the NSF legistlative office to insure that we are closely coupled to the process. At this point, this message is to alert you that this unfortunate development has occurred and that we will likely soon ask for your assistance to contact your congressional offices on this matter. We have been advised to wait a bit longer however till the process proceeds further through the NSF. The immediate input of scientific colleagues from Alaska to their congressional office on this issue would be extremely important. I urge you in the meantime to write a letter to the Director of the NSF, Dr. Neal Lane, to state your support for the importance of the Resolute Bay location to enable the polar cap science for which the PCO is aimed, to urge him to continue his strong efforts to maintain the location, and to thank him for his support of the PCO initiative. It is important that we inform the NSF that we care about the PCO and its location. We want to insure that our silence on this issue is not inadvertently interpreted as a concurrence on the relocation or that we don't care. Please keep me informed if you send a letter or email. The address for Dr. Lane is as follows: Dr. Neal F. Lane Director, National Science Foundation 4201 Wilson Boulevard Arlington, VA 22230 Email address: nlane at nsf.gov We will advise you further regarding the next steps that need to be taken. We are hopeful that strong science-support messages will be sent on this matter from all scientists associated with CEDAR and other atmospheric science programs, both nationally and internationally. Thank you for acting urgently on this request. Joe Salah CEDAR Science Steering Committee ------------------------------------------------ Excerpts from Senate Appropriations Committee Recommendation: "The Department of Defense has developed a facility which can serve as a center of excellence for ionospheric research. This facility will allow the Federal Government to complete essential research on characterizing the ionosphere, determining the effects of ionospheric activity on communications systems, and evaluating the opportunity to use the properties of the ionosphere to image underground and underwater objects and to transmit data over great distances. The DOD facility requires an incoherent scatter radar to support measurements of the ionosphere's properties and behavior. The National Science Foundation has budgeted for the purchase of an incoherent scatter radar; however, this system was to be located at a site outside of the United States which did not consider the opportunity to collocate the NSF radar with the existing ionospheric research capability. The Committee recommendation provides $25,000,000 for an incoherent scatter radar. However, the Committee directs that those funds shall be available only to construct an incoherent scatter radar collocated with the Defense Department's ionospheric research site. Locating the incoherent scatter radar at this site will allow all agencies of the Federal Government to accomplish polar and ionospheric research without wasteful duplicate investments." --------------------------------------------------- +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |To add name to the mailing list, send a message to: editor at igpp.ucla.edu | |For message to whole GEM mailing list, send to: gem at igpp.ucla.edu | | | |URL of GEM Home Page: http://igpp.ucla.edu/gem/Welcome.html | |Please update your e-mail address. | |CAUTION: Do not send messages to gem at igpp.ucla.edu unless you want | | your message to go to everyone in the GEM mailing list! | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+