DIAS

European Digital Upper Atmosphere Server

Developer

Consortium consisting of NOA-Greece, IAP-Germany, CCLRC-UK, IRF-Sweden, INGV-Italy, SRC-Poland, EBRE-Spain, IAP-Czech Rep., INTA-Spain.

Technical Group

Ionospheric Effects & Activity Forecast

Service objective

DIAS aims to provide its users with raw data and value added products and services to fully specify and forecast ionospheric conditions over Europe, guided by user needs, and driven by research in the field.

Products

Ionospheric Specification:

• Ionograms with the results of the automatic scaling
• Ionospheric scaled parameters
• Electron Density Ne(h) profiles over each DIAS station
• Nowcasting maps of foF2, M(3000)F2, MUF and Ne for ionospheric specification over Europe
• Daily plot of the Effective Sunspot Number for Europe
• Point to point MUF calculation
• Current Ionospheric Activity over Europe

Ionospheric Forecast:

• Long term ionospheric predictions for the next 3 months provided by SIRM
• maps of foF2
• maps of M(3000)F2
• maps of MUF
• Short-term ionospheric forecasting of the foF2 24 hours ahead based on two different models, GCAM and SWIF
• maps over Europe
• plots over each DIAS station
• Alerts for Ionospheric storms over Europe, based on SWIF model analysing ACE data

The full range of DIAS data, products and services is freely available to the subscribed users through the DIAS web site.

Link to Project WebSite

http://dias.space.noa.gr/

Service description

The goal of DIAS (DIgital upper Atmosphere Server) is to develop a pan-European digital data collection on the state of the upper atmosphere, based on the historical data collections and on the real-time information provided by seven operating European digital ionospheric stations (ionosondes), belonging to Public Institutes. Such a distributed information server will improve access to digital information on the state of the upper atmosphere over Europe. This will happen through the development of new value-added products and services useful for large number of HF communication and navigation systems users, such as: radio propagation characteristics for the European region, ionospheric maps, alerts and warnings for ionospheric disturbances.

DIAS consortium will develop all necessary actions for the efficient promotion of this digital collection of data and new added value products, to the world market. Currently, all existing European ionosondes operate independently, and this creates several barriers in the transformation of this information into usable data, products and services for Europe. DIAS will overcome this problem by operating a server similar to those already existing for Australia and US. This will contribute to the formation of a network of public research institutes and private sector users that will work to bring out the full potential of this type of information.

Furthermore, the DIAS consortium will ensure the viability of the project beyond the phases of the work sponsored by EU, through the creation of a competitive management structure and a detailed business plan.

Contact / Manager

Anna Belehaki