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REPORT ON THE GEM STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING,  8 DECEMBER 1994
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From: W. Jeff Hughes (HUGHES@buasta.bu.edu)

The GEM Steering Committee held a short meeting during the San 
Francisco AGU Meeting in December. The main items of business were 
to discuss the status of the GEM program within NSF, plans for this
summer's workshop, and cooperation between GEM, CEDAR and SUNRISE, 
especially with respect to the Space Weather Program. Richard Behnke
(Upper Atmosphere Section Head), Odile de la Beaujardiere 
(Magnetosphere/GEM), Sunanda Basu (Aeronomy/CEDAR), and David Sime
(Solar/SUNRISE) from NSF all attended the meeting. 

New Members: Howard Singer was welcomed as a new member of the 
steering committee. Rodger Smith, the other new member, was observing
in Svalbard so couldn't attend. Jeffrey Forbes (CEDAR Steering 
Committee Chair) also attended in his new ex officio capacity; his 
input on CEDAR was really useful. None of the new liaison members, 
Dan Baker, Bob Carovillano, Alan Rodger and Hermann Opgenoorth, was 
able to attend either because of a conflicting meeting or because 
they were not in San Francisco. 

Report from NSF: All increases in NSF funding this year are going 
into special programs, so that base programs are at best level 
funded. The Magnetosphere Program, including GEM, received a very 
modest ($60k) overall increase. GEM continues to exert strong 
proposal pressure; the number of GEM proposals increased by 25% 
over last year. The Polar Cap Observatory remains high on the 
priority list of major projects awaiting funding, having received 
good ratings against other large projects. 

Snowmass Workshop '95: Harlan Spence has planning for this summer's
workshop, June 26-30, well under control. The basic plan for the 
meeting will closely follow last year's schedule: Monday and Tuesday 
will be devoted to the Boundary Layer Campaign, Wednesday to the 
GGCM development and Thursday and Friday to the Tail/substorm 
Campaign. Some of the condominiums we normally use are being 
renovated but others will be available. 

Space Weather Program: Richard Behnke described how much of what GEM
was already doing comes under the umbrella of space weather and he 
foresees GEM naturally taking on the the NSF magnetospheric component
of the new federal Space Weather Program. 

The CEDAR Program: Jeffrey Forbes gave the history of the CEDAR 
program. He said that the program was currently at the transition 
between Phase II, during which new instrumentation was built and 
deployed, new data bases collected, and new models developed, and 
Phase III, which he described as the synergistic phase when the 
different aspects came together to move aeronomy significantly
forward. 

CEDAR/GEM/SUNRISE cooperation in Space Weather: The science behind 
tracing disturbances in the geospace environment from their source 
on the Sun to the Earth where they affect technological systems is 
clearly shared by the three science programs within NSF's upper 
atmosphere section, each of which has its own special program. Since
the biggest disruptions caused by space weather occur during major
magnetic storms, initial efforts should be focused on understanding
them. In the interests of good science and to facilitate cooperation
between the three programs it was decided that we ought to examine
one or (preferably) two major solar-terrestrial interaction events 
as a combined community (encompassing CEDAR/aeronomy, 
GEM/magnetosphere, and SUNRISE/solar), tracing the event from the
sun, through the solar wind and magnetosphere, and into the 
thermosphere/ionosphere system.  We thought the science would be
best accomplished through a series of joint workshops and AGU
sessions, and that coordination of these activities should be 
accomplished through a steering committee.  Therefore, as a first 
order of business, we "nominated" a small group and charged them 
with choosing a couple of solar-terrestrial events that met the 
various diverse needs of the scientific groups. This group, led by 
Dolores Knipp and including Loretta Weiss and Michael Buonsanto, 
has subsequently picked one such an interval. As has been reported
in the GEM Newsletter, they chose the storm of 3-4 November 1993, 
as a candidate event. An initial study of this event will be 
undertaken during this summer's Snowmass workshop to determine what
data is available. Assuming that there proves to be a good data set,
a joint study with CEDAR and SUNRISE will be undertaken, with 
perhaps a joint workshop during the summer 1996.