This workshop is the second workshop organized with the framework of the Africa Initiative for Planetary and Space Sciences in 2019 (following the first AFIPS workshop in Ethiopia).
The Eastern Africa GNSS and space weather capacity building workshop is aimed at developing a regional team to enhance capacity building in space weather monitoring over the region. Space weather is the term used to refer to the set of physical and electromagnetic processes and effects that occur on the Sun, and ultimately interact with the Earth’s magnetic sphere, atmosphere and surface. These phenomena which include solar flares, solar wind, geomagnetic storms and coronal mass ejections can have adverse effects on modern technological infrastructure in orbits and on the earth surface. The effects of space weather are more dynamic and highly unpredictable over the low latitude regions. The bulk of the sub-Saharan region mainly lies in the low latitude region where very limited efforts have been made to understand the adverse impact of space weather on its population.
The low latitude regions are not only highly vulnerable to adverse space weather events but the day to day ionospheric turbulence that occurs after local time sunset remains a great challenge. The turbulent post sunset ionosphere over this region has been associated with the high-density equatorial plasma bubbles which span to other latitudes during severe space weather events. The equatorial plasma bubbles are directly linked to disruption of radio wave propagation since they cause radio wave scintillation.
The disruption of radio communication can adversely affect both everyday life, commerce and disaster relief in equatorial regions. In this workshop we aim to utilize the expertise already attained and infrastructure in Pwani University to bring together scientists and students (Masters or Ph. D research students or Post Docs) from the eastern African region (namely: Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia) to a five days space weather workshop at Pwani University. During this five day workshop, the activities to be done will mainly be focused on lectures by international experts. Lectures will be accompanied by Laboratory projects that should enable a hand on capability with data analysis and interpretations. The workshop aims at forming a regional team focused on increasing capacity building for space weather monitoring, instrumentation, education and research in their home institutions.
More information may be found on the website of the workshop
