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Abstract The Antarctic and Arctic regions are Earth's open windows to outer space. They provide unique opportunities for investigating the troposphere–thermosphere–ionosphere–plasmasphere system at high latitudes, which is not as well understood as the mid- and low-latitude regions mainly due to the paucity of experimental observations. In addition, different neutral and ionised atmospheric layers at high latitudes are much more variable compared to lower latitudes, and their variability is due to mechanisms not yet fully understood. Fortunately, in this new millennium the observing infrastructure in Antarctica and the Arctic has been growing, thus providing scientists with new opportunities to advance our knowledge on the polar atmosphere and geospace. This review shows that it is of paramount importance to perform integrated, multi-disciplinary research, making use of long-term multi-instrument observations combined with ad hoc measurement campaigns to improve our capability of investigating atmospheric dynamics in the polar regions from the troposphere up to the plasmasphere, as well as the coupling between atmospheric layers. Starting from the state of the art of understanding the polar atmosphere, our survey outlines the roadmap for enhancing scientific investigation of its physical mechanisms and dynamics through the full exploitation of the available infrastructures for radio-based environmental monitoring. 

Abstract All‐sky imagers located in Asiago, Italy (45.87^oN, 11.53^oE; 40.7^omagnetic latitude) and Sutherland, South Africa (32.37^oS, 20.81^oE; −40.7^omagnetic latitude) are used to study magnetically conjugate medium scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs). We present initial results from the first year of joint Asiago‐Sutherland data sets from July 2016 to June 2017. The 630.0‐nm airglow perturbations showing different kinds of waves were frequently observed. Some of these wave events resemble MSTIDs propagating south‐westward in Asiago, typical direction observed at other longitude sectors in the northern hemisphere. They are mostly observed as single bands propagating through the field of view of the all‐sky imagers. We select and analyze five cases of magnetically conjugate bands associated with MSTIDs. The bands observed at Sutherland move mainly westward, noticeably different from the north‐west direction of propagation of MSTIDs observed in the southern hemisphere. We compare the MSTIDs propagation speeds and find that three cases show larger values at Sutherland. When we compare the zonal speeds all the cases show larger values at Sutherland. On average, the propagation speed at Sutherland is 20% larger and the zonal speed is ~35% larger. The westward motion at Sutherland is explained by taking onto account how its magnetic declination (~24^oW) affects the orientation of the bands. The larger speed at Sutherland is due to the weaker Earth's magnetic field in the southern hemisphere and the particular configuration of the magnetic field lines in this longitude sector.