Interdisciplinary scientists gather for plasma structure workshop

Abstract

Two of the most exciting papers presented at the Third Peaceful Valley Workshop were on the nature of plasma structure found in the nighttime midlatitude E and F regions. The first was from a coordinated rocket campaign called Sporadic E Experiment over Kyushu (SEEK) dedicated to the understanding of puzzling quasi‐periodic radar echoes that have been detected in association with sporadic E layers. In‐situ probes on two rockets measured localized electric fields as large as 20 mV/m, confirming theoretical predictions of strong polarization processes that may result from wavelike distortions imposed on normally stratified sporadic E layers. An unexpected result was the discovery of a large localized wind of 150 m/s at E region altitudes and the associated velocity shear, which was likely to lead to Kelvin‐Helmholtz instability.