Scientists
Scientific and general publications by Pene Greet and Gina Price
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Gina Price while"The Aurora Explained" plays in the Museum of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks 2008. |
Pene Greet published her work as a research scientist between 1986 and 1998. She has thirty refereed scientific publications, of which she was principal author on twelve. She has also published general articles on dog sled expeditions, the people and institutions with whom she worked, and on general issues relating to physicists. Gina Price published three refereed scientific publications between 1991 and 1995 and appeared in three television and video productions. Pene and Gina have always wanted to produce a joint scientific publication, however life intervened. Instead they have their joint work 'Frost Bytes' , and its offspring 'Aurora Calling: The Results of a Joint Observation'. Pene's favourites It's all about the people you do the work with. I liked working with Mark Conde and John Innis. I don't like the papers with long lists of people who didn't contribute to the analysis. My first paper basically admitted we'd made a terrible mistake by putting hard anti-reflection coatings on the back surface of a Fabry-Perot Etalon. Even Dr Jacka didn't want to put his name to such a mistake. Greet P.A. 1986 'Coating stress in Fabry-Perot etalons'. Applied Optics 25: 3328 3330. Finally writing up part of my PhD thesis work for publication Greet P.A. and Jacka F. 1989 'Observations of the sodium layer using a Fabry-Perot spectrometer: Twilight temperature variations'. Journal of Atmospheric and Terrestrial Physics 51: 91 99. Actually getting sodium dayglow measurements was a real buzz and we first did it successfully at Mawson in 1988/89 summer: Greet
P.A., Conde M., and Jacka F. 1989 'Daytime observation of
the sodium layer with a What I enjoyed about the following paper was that one referee commented that they couldn't even find a spelling or grammatical error in the camera-ready copy. Greet P.A., Murphy D.J., Vincent R., and Dyson P.L. 2000 'A comparison of optical and radar measurements of mesospheric winds and tides'. Geophysical Research Letters 27: 2477 2480. John Innis led some interesting work on waves. Davis was frequently inside the polar cap and the skies were very dark at these times (no aurora). This work of John's was then the basis for some theoretical studies by colleagues in the northern hemisphere. Innis J.L., Greet P.A., and Dyson P.L. 2001 'Evidence for thermospheric gravity waves in the southern polar cap from ground-based vertical and photometric observations'. Annales Geophysicae 19:533-543. Frost Bytes features in a number of newspaper articles at the time of release. |
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Gina's favourites My first two papers came directly out of my Phd and the work carried at Mawson, Antarctica in 1985. I completed my thesis and the next day jumped on a plane with it under my arm to go travelling for a year. I spent a week in Seattle cutting and pasting, with scissors to produce the papers the old fashion way. Both papers challenged current scientific thinking and were met with some skepticism. Price, G.D. and Jacka, F. 1991 'The influence of geomagnetic activity on the upper mesosphere/lower thermosphere in the auroral zone'. I. Vertical winds. Journal of Atmospheric and Terrestrial Physics 53:909-922 The paper was controversial because models said that the atmosphere was fairly stable in the vertical direction, that is winds blow mainly horizontally as vertical fountains of air take a huge amount of energy to produce. Large scale models predicted average verticals that would be measured in centimetres per second, whereas I was measuring vertical winds in metres per second, 100 times larger. Skeptics attributed the large winds to quirks in either the instrument, observation or analysis technique. The paper... Price, G.D., Jacka, F., Vincent, R.A. and Burns, G.B. 1991 'The influence of geomagnetic activity on the upper mesosphere/lower thermosphere in the auroral zone'. I. Horizontal winds. Journal of Atmospheric and Terrestrial Physics 53:923-948 ...explored the impact the aurora has on stirring up the polar atmosphere, with ripples propagating across the globe. This paper showed that the impact of the aurora extended down to 86 km, which was much lower than the generally assumed height of about 110 km. I enjoyed the statistical approach I took which gave consistent and solid results. The paper was unique in that it blended two observation techniques, an optical method using world class equipment designed by one supervisor, Fred Jacka, and radar measurements using the equally ground breaking instrumentation of my second supervisor, Bob Vincent. Without a doubt the third paper is the creme de la creme is... Price, G.D., Smith, R.W. and Hernandez, G. 1995. Simultaneous measurements of large vertical winds in the upper and lower thermosphere. Journal of Atmospheric and Terrestrial Physics 57:631-644. Why, because this substantiated the previous measurements of large vertical winds at Mawson, with larger winds, over 40 metres per second (150 kilometres per hour), at Poker Flat Alaska, measured with a different instrument, at the opposite pole, and with a wider range of support observations. The key aspect was being able to measure this upward fountain of air at two heights, 130km and 240km, simultaneously, giving greater weight to the validity of the measurement. This was my dream data, literally! The observations were carried out in Alaska the winter after Pene's visit, which marked the end of our story in 'Frost Bytes'. The night the winds blew upwards I was alone in the Optics lab, at Poker Flat Rocket Range, near Fairbanks, Alaska. I had got all the instrumentation running, and had dosed off to sleep on the couch. Not long after midnight, I was woken from a vivid dream of winning a dog sled race with my father cheering me on. I stepped outside into the most brilliant aurora I have ever seen: the whole sky was dripping with light like the inside of a huge chandelier. I felt like Cinderella at the ballroom, and that this was my event. Checking the data in the morning proved it, a huge fountain of air rushing up at 42 metres per second (150 kilometres per hour) at the lower height, and over 100 metres per second (360 kilometres per hour) at the higher height. Holding a workshop on vertical winds, bringing people together to share measurements, and then compiling the work as a guest editor to produce a special issue, was the highlight of my scientific career and the contribution for which I am most proud. Price, G.D. 1995 Preface: Vertical Winds special Issue. Journal of Atmospheric and Terrestrial Physics 57:587
Video and Television Appearances: The Aurora Explained, Aurora Color Television Project, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, 1992. Newton's Apple, segment on the Aurora, Public Broadcasting System, Saint Paul, Minnesota, 1992 Healthy, Wealthy and Wise, Network Ten, Monday, 17 July 1995
Frost Bytes Newspaper and Magazine Articles: Smart Woman, Oct/Nov 1994 West Australian, BIG Weekend, 15 April 1995 The Age, Feature Saturday EXTRA, 25 February 1995 Sunday Times, Review, 11 June 1995 Sunday Sun Herald, Sunday Magazine, 19 March 1995 The Mercury, Hobart, 17 February 1995 Sunday Mail, Queensland, 5 March 1995 Melville-FremantleCommunity, 23 May 1995 The POST, 23 May 1995 Australian &New Zealand Physicist, April 1995 |
