{"id":227296,"date":"2026-06-24T23:13:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T23:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/227296\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T23:13:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T23:13:07","slug":"university-of-scranton-team-to-research-the-ionosphere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/227296\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Scranton team to research the ionosphere"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A research group at the University of Scranton has ambitions to study the weather and how it impacts global communications.<\/p>\n<p>SCRANTON, Pa. \u2014 A team of researchers at the University of Scranton has its eyes high in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>Kornyanat Hozumi and Dr. Nathaniel Frissell are studying the ionosphere, which is about 50 miles up in space, and how the weather up there impacts communication signals across the world.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It seems so far away, but it&#8217;s connected to our daily lives,&#8221; said Kornyanat Hozumi.<\/p>\n<p>To put it in perspective, we live in the troposphere. This is where the weather we live in every day happens. It extends 5 to 10 miles high. They are studying the ionosphere. It goes from 50 miles up to hundreds of miles up.<\/p>\n<p>Frissel and Hozumi will be taking data from ham radio and GPS signals to make better models of the upper atmosphere. They say right now the observations don&#8217;t connect well with models.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We need ways of comparing the data that we can receive, like this ham radio data, with actual models,&#8221; said Dr. Nathaniel Frissell.<\/p>\n<p>It is actually very similar to what the Stormtracker 16 Team uses at WNEP. We have observations like temperature and wind. Those observations are put into models that show potential weather patterns.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The researchers will use a process called Ray Tracing to show how radio signals travel. The type of stuff we use daily.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So if you have a GPS signal going through the ionosphere. Any sort of variation in the sphere will create a delay with signals going from the satellite to the ground,&#8221; said Dr. Frissell.<\/p>\n<p>The team received two grants for their project, each totaling about $600,000.<\/p>\n<p>The newest grant will enable the team to study how signals travel through what are called plasma bubbles. Hozumi says the bubbles are a disturbance, like solar flares from the sun.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Inside the bubble it&#8217;s just not empty space. There are fluctuations in plasma density, and this kind of fluctuation causes a lot of irregularity,&#8221; said Hozumi.<\/p>\n<p>The projects are expected to last through 2029.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A research group at the University of Scranton has ambitions to study the weather and how it impacts&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-227296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}