Contribution of the Chinese Meridian Project to space environment research: Highlights and perspectives

Abstract

The Chinese Meridian Project (CMP) is devoted to establishing a comprehensive ground-based monitoring network for China’s space weather research. CMP is a major national science and technology infrastructure project with the participation of more than 10 research institutions and universities led by the National Space Science Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. CMP is planned to be constructed in two phases: CMP phases I and II. The first phase (CMP-I) started construction in 2008 and completed in 2012, after which it entered the operation stage. The 10-year observation of CMP-I has made significant scientific discoveries and achievements in the research fields of the middle and upper atmospheric fluctuations, metal layers in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere, ionospheric disturbances and irregularities, geomagnetic disturbances, and influences of solar activity. The review summarizes the main observations and research achievements, space weather forecast modeling and methods based on CMP-I over the past 10 years, and presents a future extension perspective along with the construction of CMP-II.

Regional Ionospheric Super Bubble Induced by Significant Upward Plasma Drift During the 1 December 2023 Geomagnetic Storm

“…A combination of multiple types of observational technologies from equatorial to middle latitudes in East/ Southeast Asia were employed, including Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers, ionosondes, a phased-array very high frequency (VHF) radar, and a Low lAtitude long Range Ionospheric raDar (LARID) (Hu et al, 2024). These instruments are part of the Chinese Meridian Project Phase I (Wang, 2010) and Phase II (Wang et al, 2023), and the Ionospheric Observational Network for Irregularity and Scintillation in East/Southeast Asia (IONISE) (Li et al, 2019;Sun et al, 2020). Figure 1 gives an overview of the geographical distribution of all the instruments used in this study.…”

Development of Low Latitude Long Range Ionospheric Radar for Observing Plasma Bubble Irregularities and Preliminary Results

“…In recent years, SuperDARN-like HF radars were proposed to be built at equatorial and low latitudes, for example, in Africa (Lawal et al, 2018;Michael et al, 2020) and in Asia (Li et al, 2021). In order to monitor the onset and evolution of EPBs over a wide longitude range in East and Southeast Asia, and to improve the prediction capability of EPB and its related ionospheric scintillations, we began to design and develop a HF phased array radar in 2018 that was supported by the Chinese Meridian Project phase II (Wang et al, 2023). The radar, which is named Low lAtitude long Range Ionospheric raDar (LARID), was installed at low latitude Dongfang (19.2°N,108.8°E,dip lat.…”

China's Ground‐Based Space Environment Monitoring Network—Chinese Meridian Project (CMP)

“…From 2012 to present, the CMP‐Phase I has been running for more than one solar cycle. Significant progress in the regional characteristics of the space environment, the propagation of space weather disturbances, and the coupling of matter and energy between different layers have been made by using data from the CMP‐Phase I (Wang et al., 2023). The second phase, CMP‐Phase II, began in 2019 and has been completed, forming a comprehensive solar‐terrestrial space environment monitoring network covering the Chinese Mainland and the polar regions.…”