| Popis: |
Geospace physics research is entering a new era in Canada. Although this development has been a poorly kept secret among the informed observers, there has not been, to date, an attempt to summarize these changes in a single source and convey to the scientific world the vision and potential of the new “Northern perspective”. In this paper we make a first attempt to fill this gap, without, however, claiming authoritativeness or completeness – such a claim would be defeated by the fast-paced development in Canada on many fronts. The new Canadian perspective is based on a keen awareness of the multiscale character of geospace, and on a realistic yet innovative outlook which integrates Canada's strengths into national efforts emphasizing the use of multi-instrument techniques to attack multiscale complexities in problems. We organize our discussion in four major sections: a description of the plan to enhance Canada's leadership position in ground-based geospace science, centered on the Canadian Geospace Monitoring program; a description of Canada's latest effort to achieve major breakthroughs in our understanding of geospace transition region dynamics, centered on the Canadian small satellite experiment ePOP; a description of Canada's participations in three major international geospace missions (THEMIS, SWARM, and AMISR); and, finally, a description of two potential new Canadian-led geospace missions, Ravens and Orbitals. We will integrate key scientific goals and strategies in our narrative about these missions, and use examples to illustrate the considerable potential of these Canadian efforts. |
