H.A.A.R.P. High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program

H.A.A.R.P.

High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program

HAARP, the most powerful ionosphere heater on Earth

When stimulated with high-intensity radio waves, the ionosphere responds with baffling and beautiful displays.

Todd Pedersen is a scientist at the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Physics Today 68, 12, 72 (2015); https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3032

Our modern world of Wi-Fi, smartphones, and location apps relies on radio waves to link up all our gadgets. Most of us, though, are unaware that the ionosphere high above Earth affects the location services in our phones and the directions relayed by the navigation units in our cars. The complex dynamics of the ionospheric plasma, a gas of electrons and ions enveloping our planet, can be studied by research facilities such as the High Frequency Active AuroralResearch Program (HAARP), located in Alaska. During the past 15 years, HAARP has produced many interesting and unexpected results, perhaps most spectacularly the production of an artificial ionospheric plasma generated by radio waves.

ATMOSPHERIC SHRAPNEL

The ionosphere is the region of the upper atmosphere characterized by a large population of free electrons and ions—the atmospheric shrapnel that arises when UV photons from the Sun knock electrons from atmospheric gas. (For a tour of the upper atmosphere, see the Quick Study by John Emmert, Physics Today, December 2008, page 70.) Its density is controlled by the relative rates of ion production and the recombination of ions with electrons to re-create neutral molecules. The ionosphere begins at an altitude of about 70 km, reaches a peak daytime density of something like a million particles per cubic centimeter near 250 km, and tapers off above that altitude to blend into the much more rarefied plasmasphere, magnetosphere, and solar wind.

The ionospheric plasma can distort and delay satellite communications and navigation signals passing through it; indeed, the primary practical motivation for studying the ionosphere is to get a handle on those effects. At the low power of day-to-day devices, the ionospheric plasmacan alter radio waves, but the plasma itself is unaffected. At high enough power densities, however, radio waves can affect the plasma and generate feedback between the waves and plasma, a phenomenon that offers a unique means—so-called ionospheric heating—of studying the ionosphere.

The HAARP facility began operating in 1999 with a 6 × 8 array of transmitting antennas that, in total, produced 960 kW of RF power—about the same as generated by 10 AM radio stations. (The figure shows today’s 12 × 15 array.) The HAARP beam is broad like a flashlight’s, not narrow like a laser’s, but it can be electronically steered anywhere within 30° of zenith—that is, local vertical—and it can operate at 3–10 MHz. Its powerful radio waves drive ionosphericelectrons back and forth in what are called plasma waves. As those driven electrons collide with each other and with background species, their temperature goes up, which is why HAARP is called a heater.

Heating and observing the ionosphere. Generators at the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) operations center in Alaska (buildings to the upper left) feed power to the large antenna array to the right. That array, in turn, transmits RF waves that interact with the ionosphere. Shelters down the road from the array house optical instruments for observing the resulting excitations; one of the instruments is visible through the clear dome in the lower inset. (Backdrop photo by A. Lee Snyder; inset photo by Robert Esposito.) The red and green regions in the upper inset (courtesy of Jeffrey Holmes) represent regions of the ionosphere in which oxygen atoms excited by ionospheric heating relax to lower-energy states. Behind the HAARP site rises Mount Drum.

A SERIES OF UNEXPECTED EVENTS

Just as an opera soprano needs to sing at just the right frequency to break a glass, so a heatermust target frequencies that match the natural plasma resonances in the ionosphere. Primary targets include the plasma frequency, a function of electron density; multiples of the cyclotron frequency of electrons spiraling around the magnetic field; and hybrid resonances that combine those fundamental frequencies.

Measurements of optical emissions excited by heated electrons yielded HAARP’s first unexpected result. Spotting such emissions at all was a feat, inasmuch as 20 years of attempts to do so at the EISCAT (European Incoherent Scatter) heater in Norway’s Arctic had been unsuccessful; in fact, HAARP scientists had been warned that looking for optical emissions would be a waste of time. Nevertheless, images recording the red 630.0-nm oxygen line revealed a faint blob turning on and off in sync with the heater; that could only mean HAARP had heated the electrons and excited the oxygen. The airglow showed an unexpected enhancement well away from the beam center, at the magnetic zenith—that is, the direction of the magnetic field. The obvious next step was to point the beam toward the magnetic zenith, which at HAARP is about 15° south-southwest of vertical. When the experiment was finally performed in 2002, as the HAARP array swung the beam through the magnetic zenith, the blob lit up and was 10 times as bright as airglow in any other location. A variation of that magnetic zenith effect had been previously observed at EISCAT, but neither the EISCAT nor HAARP version of the effect had been predicted and neither is fully understood.

Thanks to its frequency agility, the HAARP antenna can heat the ionosphere at specific altitudes where the transmission frequency simultaneously matches two resonances. In 2004, experiments exploiting that possibility produced green-line oxygen emissions at 557.7 nm. (The figure shows an airglow with red and green oxygen emission.) Those lines come from an excited state with an energy 4 eV above the ground-state energy; evidently, by “surfing” plasma waves, the electrons accelerated to energies well beyond the thermal energy. Another HAARP experiment in the same series heated an ephemeral ionospheric layer produced by an aurora; the resulting green spots were as bright as the aurora itself. Those extremely bright spots have since been reproduced but are not yet explained.

In 2007 HAARP expanded to its full design capability of 12 × 15 antennas and 3.6 MW of total power. During its first postexpansion science campaign, in February 2008, my colleagues and I obtained optical images with strange, unpredicted rings around the airglow spot. We hypothesized that if the plasma in the center of the beam were slightly enhanced in density relative to the background ionosphere, the density gradient could divert rays away from the center of the beam toward the location where the ring was observed. Careful examination of echoes from radio waves bounced off the ionosphere turned up evidence for a density-enhancing artificial plasma layer just below the natural ionosphere. Moreover, simulations of RF waves propagating through the observed layer put additional power right where the rings were seen.

We had not expected such artificial ionization to be possible, but we followed up with new experiments designed to optimize ionization production. In March 2009, just over 10 years after we were told that looking for airglow was futile, I stepped outside with a couple of coworkers during an ionization experiment and marveled at the light—visible with unaided eyes—from an artificial ionospheric plasma produced and sustained by radio wavestransmitted from the ground.

In addition to generating unexpected phenomena, HAARP scientists used and further developed a diagnostic technique pioneered at EISCAT: stimulated electromagnetic emissions. The effect arises when plasma waves stimulated by the heater regenerate radio waves that are received on the ground as a complex spectrum of narrow peaks and broad bumps on either side of the transmission frequency. Some of those depend not only on electron density but also on ion mass, magnetic field strength, or other parameters. Thus the stimulated emissions provide a potentially powerful tool for analyzing conditions in the heated volume.

A ZOO OF PLASMA WAVES

Admittedly, research at HAARP has not directly contributed to new corrections for ionospheric effects on navigation or communications systems. Instead, the many surprises encountered in HAARP experiments have made abundantly clear the need for quantitative predictive theory and modeling in the field of high-power RF-wave propagation. The complex equations describing plasma waves imply a whole zoo of wave modes that could potentially be excited by a transmitter.

But no one can predict with certainty whether a particular wave mode will absorb half the transmitted energy or only one part in a million. For example, observed artificial plasmaproduction accounts for only about 5% of the energy available from the beam; some of the remaining 95% undoubtedly excites other modes that might mislead researchers into wrongly identifying the cause of the ionization. Stimulated electromagnetic emissions hold the greatest promise for helping scientists determine which wave modes are active during actual experiments.

An interesting and still unexplored aspect of artificial ionization is the complex interplay between the plasma created by radio waves and the bending or reflecting of radio waves by that plasma. As food for thought, have a look at the video that accompanies the online version of this Quick Study. You’ll see a wide range of spots, turbulence, and sharp gradients—despite the smoothly varying beam. If we are ever to develop practical applications of heating technology, we’ll need to find mathematical solutions describing the evidently complex feedback process.

In August 2015 the HAARP facility was transferred from the US Air Force to the University of Alaska so that HAARP scientists could continue their investigations of fundamental plasmaphysics in an academic environment.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

Video: HAARP, the most powerful

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

1. 1.F. F. Chen, Introduction to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, Volume 1: Plasma Physics, 2nd ed., Springer (2006).Google Scholar
2. 2.B. Freeman, “HAARP scientists create mini ionosphere,” Armed with Science blog (27 February 2010). Google Scholar
3. 3.N. Rozell, “HAARP again open for business,” University of Alaska Fairbanks online news story (3 September 2015). Google Scholar
4. © 2015 American Institute of Physics.

High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (Redirected from HAARP)

Do not confuse this article with Project HARP, the High Altitude Research Project (a joint project of The Pentagon and the Canadian Department of National Defence)

Aerial view of HAARP site

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is an investigation project to "understand, simulate and control ionospheric processes that might alter the performance of communication and surveillance systems". Started in 1993, the project is proposed to last for a period of twenty years.

The project is jointly funded by US Air Force, Navy, and University of Alaska. It is said that the project is similar to numerous existing ionospheric heaters around the world, and has a large suite of diagnostic instruments that facilitate its use to increase scientific understanding of ionospheric dynamics. Though many have expressed fears of HAARP being used as a nefarious weapon, the scientists involved in aeronomy, space science, or plasma physics dismiss these fears as unfounded.

Contents

[hide]

1 The HAARP site

1.1 Ionospheric heating facilities

1.1.1 Platteville

1.1.2 Current facilities

1.2 Diagnostic instrumentation

2 Research at HAARP

3 Stated objectives

4 HAARP controversy

4.1 HAARP's critics

4.2 HAARP's supporters

5 See also

6 Patents

7 External links

The HAARP site

The project site is near Gakona, Alaska (lat. 62.39° N, long 145.15° W), just West of the Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park. An environmental impact statement led to permission for an array of up to 180 antennas to be erected. HAARP has been constructed at the previous site of an over-the-horizon radar installation. A large structure, built to house the OTH now houses the HAARP control room, kitchen, and offices. Several other small structures house various instruments. The Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI) is the primary instrument at HAARP, which is a high-frequency (HF) transmitter system used to temporarily modify the ionosphere. Study of this modified volume yields important information for understanding natural ionospheric processes.

During active ionospheric research, the signal generated by the transmitter system is delivered to the antenna array, transmitted in an upward direction, and is partially absorbed, at an altitude between 100 to 350 km (depending on operating frequency), in a small volume a few hundred meters thick and a few tens of kilometers in diameter over the site. The intensity of the HF signal in the ionosphere is less than 3 microwatts per cm2, tens of thousands of times less than the Sun's natural electromagnetic radiation reaching the earth and hundreds of times less than even the normal random variations in intensity of the Sun's natural ultraviolet (UV) energy which creates the ionosphere. The small effects that are produced, however, can be observed with the sensitive scientific instruments installed at the HAARP facility and these observations can provide new information about the dynamics of plasmas and new insight into the processes of solar-terrestrial interactions. [2]

The HAARP site has been constructed in three distinct phases. The Developmental Prototype (DP) had 18 antenna elements, organized in three columns by six rows. It was fed with a total of 360 kilowatts (KW) combined transmitter output power. The DP transmitted just enough power for the most basic of ionospheric testing.

The Filled Developmental Prototype (FDP) had 48 antenna units arrayed in six columns by eight rows, with 960 KW of transmitter power. It was fairly comparable to other ionospheric heating facilities. This was used for a number of successful scientific experiments and ionospheric exploration campaigns over the years.

The Final IRI (FIRI) will be the final build of the IRI. It has 180 antenna units, organized in 15 columns by 12 rows, yielding a theoretical maximum gain of 31 dB. A total of 3600 KW (3.6 MW) of transmitter power will feed it. The total effective radiated power (ERP) will be 3,981 MW (96 dBW). As of the summer of 2005, all the antennas were in place, but the final quota of transmitters had not yet been installed.

Each antenna element[3][4] consists of a crossed dipole that can be polarized for linear, ordinary mode (O-mode), or extraordinary mode (X-mode) transmission and reception. Each part of the two section crossed dipoles are individually fed from a custom built transmitter, that has been specially designed with very low distortion. The ERP of the IRI is limited by more than a factor of 10 at its lower operating frequencies. Much of this is due to higher antenna losses and a less efficient antenna pattern.

HAARP can transmit between 2.8 and 10 MHz. This frequency range lies above the AM radio broadcast band and well below Citizens' Band frequency allocations. HAARP is only licensed to transmit in certain segments of this frequency range, however. When the IRI is transmitting, the bandwidth of the transmitted signal is 100 kHz or less. The IRI can transmit continuously (CW) or pulses as short as 100 microseconds (μs). CW transmission is generally used for ionospheric modification, while short pulses are frequently repeated, and the IRI is used as a radar system. Researchers can run experiments that use both modes of transmission, modifying the ionosphere for a predetermined amount of time, then measuring the decay of modification effects with pulsed transmissions.

Ionospheric heating facilities

Comparison of HAARP with other ionospheric facilities

(From the HAARP website, public use permitted if source cited)

The HAARP IRI is an ionospheric heater, one of many around the world. It is comparable in function and power to most of them.

Platteville

One of the earliest ionospheric heating facilities was at Platteville, Colorado, capable of radiating about 100 MW ERP. Early experiments included HF heater induced air-glow, heater-induced spread F, wide band heater-induced absorption, and heater-created field-aligned ionization. The Platteville heater operated from 1968 - 1984.

Current facilities

The United States has three ionospheric heating facilities: HAARP, HIPAS, near Fairbanks, Alaska, and (currently offline for modifications) one at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association (EISCAT) operates an ionospheric heating facility, capable of transmitting over 1 GW [5] (10,000,000,000 Watts) effective radiated power (ERP), near Tromsø in Norway. Russia has the Sura ionospheric heating facility, near Nizhniy Novgorod, capable of transmitting 300 MW ERP.

Diagnostic instrumentation

VHF radar

UHF radar

Digisonde

A digisonde provides ionospheric profiles, allowing scientists to choose appropriate frequencies for IRI operation. HAARP makes current and historic digisonde information available online.

HF receivers

Fluxgate magnetometer

A fluxgate magnetometer, built by the University of Alaska, Geophysical Institute is available to chart variations in the earth's magnetic field. Rapid and sharp changes may indicate a geomagnetic storm.

Induction magnetometer

An induction magnetometer, provided by the University of Tokyo, measures the changing geomagnetic field in the ULF (Ultra low frequency) range of 0-5 Hz.

Research at HAARP

Research at HAARP includes:

Ionospheric heating

Plasma line observations

Stimulated electron emission observations

Gyro-frequency heating research

Spread F observations

Airglow observations

Heating induced scintillation observations

VLF and ELF generation observations

Radio observations of meteors

Polar mesospheric summer echos : Polar Mesospheric Summer Echos (PMSE) have been studied using the IRI as a powerful radar, as well as with the 28 MHz radar, and the two VHF radars at 49 MHz and 139 MHz. The presence of multiple radars spanning both HF and VHF bands allows scientists to make comparative measurements that may someday lead to an understanding of the processes that form these elusive phenomenon.

Stated objectives

The HAARP project aims to direct a 3.6 MW signal, in the 2.8-10 MHz region of the HF band, into the ionosphere. The signal may be pulsed or continuous wave. Then effects of the transmission and any recovery period will be examined associated instrumentation, including VHF and UHF radars, HF receivers, and optical cameras. According to the HAARP team, this will advance the study of basic natural processes that occur in the ionosphere under the natural but much stronger influence of solar interaction, as well as how the natural ionosphere affects radio signals. This will enable scientists to develop techniques to mitigate these effects in order to improve the reliability and/or performance of communication and navigation systems, which would have a wide range of applications in both the civilian and military sectors.

The project is funded by the Office of Naval Research and jointly managed by the ONR and Air Force Research Laboratory, with the principal involvement of the University of Alaska. Fourteen other universities and educational institutions have been involved in the development of the project and its instruments, namely the University of Alaska, Penn State University (ARL), Boston College, UCLA, Clemson University, Dartmouth College, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, College Park, University of Massachusetts, MIT, Polytechnic University, Stanford University, and the University of Tulsa. The project's specifications were developed by the universities, which are continuing to play a major role in the design of future research efforts. There is both military and commercial interest in its outcome, as many communications and navigation systems depend on signals being reflected from the ionosphere or passing through the ionosphere to satellites.

The HAARP project offers annual open days to permit the general public to visit the facility, and makes a public virtue of openness; according to the team, "there are no classified documents pertaining to HAARP." Each summer, HAARP holds a summer-school for visiting students, giving them an opportunity to do research with one of the world's foremost research instruments.

HAARP controversy

Numerous parties have found reasons to suspect that HAARP is more than the government claims it to be. Various theories draw on brain waves, confusion of the ionosphere with the neutral atmosphere, and over-stated claims of HAARP supporters. Many of the concerns about HAARP have been presented so as to be dismissed as "conspiracy theories" by some, while seen as proof of nefarious governmental plotting by others.

HAARP's critics

Waste:

The cost of building HAARP has exceeded the dollar-adjusted cost of similar facilities around the world. HAARP was constructed at the site of an obsoleted over-the-horizon radar facility for political reasons, but its location was less than ideal from a scientific perspective. Some believe that it was constructed as a pork barrel project for Alaska by Senator Ted Stevens.

Weapon:

The objectives of the HAARP project became the subject of controversy in the mid-1990s, following claims that the antennas could be used as a weapon. A small group of American physicists aired complaints in scientific journals such as Physics and Society, charging that HAARP could be seeking ways to blow other countries' spacecraft out of the sky or disrupt communications over large portions of the planet. The physicist critics of HAARP have had little complaint about the project's current stage, but have expressed fears that it could in future be expanded into an experimental weapon.

These concerns were amplified by Bernard Eastlund, a physicist who developed some of the concepts behind HAARP in the 1980s and proposed using high-frequency radio waves to beam large amounts of power into the ionosphere, energizing its electrons and ions in order to disable incoming missiles and knock out enemy satellite communications. The US military became interested in the idea as an alternative to the laser-based Strategic Defense Initiative. However, Eastlund's ideas were eventually dropped as SDI itself mutated into the more limited National Missile Defense of today. The contractors selected to build HAARP have denied that any of Eastlund's patents were used in the development of the project.

After the physicists raised early concerns, the controversy was stoked by local activism. In September 1995, a book entitled Angels Don't Play This HAARP: Advances in Tesla Technology by Nick Begich, Jr., son of the late Congressman Nick Begich, claimed that the project in its present stage could be used for "geophysical warfare". HAARP has subsequently become a target for those who have suggested that it could be used to test the ability "to deliver very large amount of energy, comparable to a nuclear bomb, anywhere on earth", "changing weather patterns", "blocking all global communications", "disrupting human mental processes" and mind control, communicating with submarines, and "x-raying the earth".

In April 1997, the then U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen publicly discussed the dangers of HAARP-like technology, saying "[o]thers are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves... So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations... It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our efforts." This quote derives from an April 1997 counterterrorism conference sponsored by former Senator Sam Nunn, quoted from "DoD News Briefing, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, Q&A at the Conference on Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and U.S. Strategy," held at the University of Georgia-Athens, Apr. 28, 1997.

Russians:

In August 2002, further support for those critical of HAARP technology came from the State Duma (parliament) of Russia. The Duma published a critical report on HAARP written by the international affairs and defense committees, signed by 90 deputies and presented to President Vladimir Putin. The report claimed that "the U.S. is creating new integral geophysical weapons that may influence the near-Earth medium with high-frequency radio waves ... The significance of this qualitative leap could be compared to the transition from cold steel to fire arms, or from conventional weapons to nuclear weapons. This new type of weapons differs from previous types in that the near-Earth medium becomes at once an object of direct influence and its component." However, given the timing of the Russian intervention, it is likely that it was related to a controversy at the time concerning the US withdrawal in June 2002 from the Russian-American Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. This high level concern is paralled in the April 1997 statement by the U.S. Secretary of Defense over the power of such electromagnetic weaponry. Besides , Russia owns a ionospheric heater as powerful as the HAARP , named 'Sura' ,located in Russia's central area, in a remote and desolate place some 150 km from the city of Nizhny Novgorod.

HAARP's supporters

The critics' views have been rejected by HAARP's defenders, who have pointed out that the amount of energy at the project's disposal is minuscule compared to the colossal energies dumped into the atmosphere by solar radiation and thunderstorms. A University of Alaska, Geophysical Institute scientist has compared HAARP to an "immersion heater in the Yukon River."

It would also be unable to effect any long-lasting changes; as the ionosphere is inherently a chaotically turbulent region, any artificially induced changes would be "swept clean" within seconds or minutes at the most. Ionospheric heating experiments performed at the Arecibo Observatory's ionospheric heater and incoherent scatter radar have shown that no matter how long the ionosphere is modified, it returns to normal within the same period of time.

Ionospheric heating cannot be performed while the sun illuminates the ionosphere for two reasons:

Solar UV creates the ionospheric D-region, which absorbs the radio waves used for ionospheric heating.

The solar flux overwhelms any effect of ionospheric heating. (needs to be verified John Elder 01:50, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC))

HAARP's supporters also point to the lack of serious scientific evidence to support some of the more exotic claims being made about HAARP, such as the conjecture that the system caused the 2003 North America blackout or earthquakes.

Most scientists reject the extreme criticism of HAARP as "utter nonsense," especially aeronomers and space-physicists who have a solid understanding of the accusations levelled at HAARP. Books, such as Angel's don't Play this HAARP, are often circulated and ridiculed in private. The scientific community puts forth little or no effort to defend HAARP, because they perceive those who attack HAARP as lacking sufficient understanding of science to criticize HAARP competently.

HAARP: weather manipulations, electro-magnetic warfare

HAARP a program for man-made control of weather events, weather manipulation… “spacequakes” … earthquakes, a huge sonic space weapon system, (out of control),

electro-magnetic warfare,

Learn about it.

Decide for yourself

The possibilities and theories ,,,

The science and technologies ,,,

The evidences and conspiracies ,,,

Connect the dots ,,,

An Overview of the HAARP Program

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) operates a major ionospheric research facility at Gakona, Alaska. As you look through our web site, you will find many technical details about this facility and about active ionospheric research in general. The web site also contains descriptive material on the Earth’s ionosphere and gives examples of some of the scientific results obtained at the HAARP facility.

There is a strong connection between the ionospheric research conducted at the HAARP facility and many practical issues that affect our everyday lives. All long-distance high frequency (HF) communication systems, such as ship-to-shore communications, transoceanic aircraft links, and portable systems used so frequently in Alaska and other remote areas, operate by bouncing signals off the ionosphere, a process often referred to as sky-wave propagation. By studying a small, limited portion of the ionosphere directly over the facility, research at the HAARP observatory is able to probe the nature of this dynamic medium, both in its naturally disturbed condition and when artificially stimulated, with the goal of being able to provide the fundamental understanding necessary to enhance the performance of such systems.