-------------------------------------------------------- REPORT ON THE 3 JULY 1993 GEM STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING -------------------------------------------------------- Submitted by: W. Lotko, Steering Committee Chair Present at the meeting: O. de la Beaujardiere, T. Eastman, E. Friis-Christensen, J. Hughes, D. Knipp, W. Lotko, L. Lyons, A. Nishida, V. Papitashvili, T. Rosenberg, J. Samson, J. Sojka, D. Wolf (1) Summer 94 Workshop: * Workshops on the Boundary Layer Campaign and the Tail/Substorm Campaign will be held next summer in Snowmass during the week of June 27 - July 1. This is the week following the CEDAR meeting to be held in Boulder again next year. T. Rosenberg will continue to coordinate GEM workshop logistics next year. * The workshop planners will try to schedule at least one free afternoon for recreation during the week of the workshop. This may require making the poster session a one vs. two evening event with WG or plenary meetings scheduled during the other evening. * Procedures for registration will become more formal next year with an early/late fee structure to encourage early registration to facilitate meeting planning. * A discussion of the Boycott Colorado question brought up the following points. The legality of Colorado's Amendment 2 restricting municipalities' ability to enact anti-discrimination ordinances based on sexual preference is currently being challenged in court; the district court has placed an injunction on the measure which has yet to be enacted. The cities of Boulder, Denver, and Aspen/Snowmass have ordinances forbidding jobs and housing discrimination on the basis of sexual preference and voted a plurality against Amendment 2. (Some legal experts are saying that a Colorado Supreme court ruling on July 19 that ``fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote'' has dealt a ``fatal blow to Amendment 2'' whose fate will be decided in October 93 when the legal challenge is scheduled for trial.) The steering committee decided not participate in an indiscriminate boycott; depending on the outcome of the legal challenge to Amendment 2, the SC chairman will forward a letter to the appropriate Colorado state government body conveying the reservations of some GEM program participants about Amendment 2 and their reluctance to visit Colorado. (2) FY94 budget outlook, proposals, program review: * T. Eastman noted that the GEM program is currently slated for an $800k increase in FY94 although the Atmospheric Sciences budget for FY94 will not be settled until later this year. The GEM announcement in the NSF Global Change brochure will be essentially unchanged for this year; it encompasses both the boundary layer and tail/substorm campaigns (see below) in FY 94. The target date for GEM proposals is October 15, 1993. (3) Steering Committee Rotation: * Seven names were submitted to the Program Director as prospective steering committee members to replace Bill Burke and Jan Sojka who will be rotating off the committee this year. (Thanks to Bill and Jan for service to the GEM program!) T. Eastman will make two appointments from the list of seven. The SC recommended that one of the new members have a background in modeling; the other should have a background in observation/data analysis. (4) GEM Database: * It is recommended that the database model presented by John Olson at the workshop be implemented. Chris Russell and Guan Le are prepared to begin implementation on the UCLA GEM computer node. Some aspects of the system can be implemented immediately; others will take longer. John Olson has agreed to serve as technical overseer of the GEM database. Queries about the database system should be directed to both Chris Russell and John Olson. * The steering committee requests that the US STEP Coordination office assist in coordinating GEM and STEP observing campaigns by ``broadcasting'' advance notices of campaign days and campaign objectives to the respective communities and by providing post campaign synopses of available data sets and associated PIs. (5) Boundary Layer Campaign Goals/Duration: * The campaign goals, as discussed at past and present workshops, was reviewed by the steering committee. These goals will be summarized in a forthcoming EOS or GEMstone article. It was also agreed that the boundary layer campaign will tentatively end in FY 1996 with the expectation that a monograph or monographs will be published in FY97 to summarize the campaign successes, products, and remaining scientific inadequacies. It is conceivable that limited resources may continue to be available beyond FY96 for some boundary layer projects that are deemed to be of crucial importance for GGCM development. (6) Tail/Substorm (T/S) Campaign Initiation: * The Tail/Substorm Campaign will begin in FY94 despite uncertainties in NSF funding for the campaign. A driving factor in starting the campaign next year, even if at a relatively modest level, is the opportunity to coordinate ground-based observations with Geotail and IACG satellite campaigns. * T. Eastman indicated that NSF would provide at least minimal resources for campaign infrastructure with the amount of additional funds for T/S campaign science awards to be determined once the FY94 budget is set. Minimal infrastructure includes the workshop at next summer's Snowmass meeting, communications (already in place at UCLA), coordination for T/S observing intervals and for modeling efforts. Coordination for some aspects of tail modeling is already taking place in the GGCM Assembly working group; O. de la Beaujardiere is planning coordinated campaign intervals involving GEM-related ground-based observations and Geotail campaigns (see also below). The target date for GEM Tail/Substorm Campaign proposals, which may include supplementary requests to support well-defined tasks in coordinating modeling/observing efforts, is October 15, 1993. Prospective PIs are encouraged to contact Bill Lotko or Tim Eastman for further details, especially regarding supplements for coordination. * Planning for next summer's T/S workshop will be undertaken by the steering committee (after next year, it is expected that the T/S coordinators will assume this responsibility). J. Hughes and D. Wolf will assist one of the new steering committee members in planning for the workshop. Working group themes and working group co-chairs should be more or less established by the time of the Fall 93 AGU meeting. Anyone interested in proposing a working group topic for next summer's T/S workshop or in serving as a working group co-chair should contact Jeff Hughes, Bill Lotko, or Dick Wolf. (7) Program Coordination Spanning the the 94/95 Timeframe: * O. de la Beaujardiere is coordinating planning for observing campaigns involving ground-based instruments and various international satellites. At present, a 3-day World Day event is planned for January 11-16, 94. Plans for campaigns involving Geotail have been put on hold until after September 93 when the satellite will be turned off in an attempt to restart one of the particle instruments. Possible campaigns include a period in late 93/early 94 when Geotail will skim the magnetopause and sometime in Winter 94/95 after it enters a low apogee orbit with apogee near midnight during the winter solstice. Odile is also looking for a Geotail/Freja/Exos-D conjunction as another possible campaign interval and a campaign(s) involving the FAST satellite is also being considered for Jan-Mar 95 timeframe. (8) International Coordination: * A. Nishida reviewed IACG activities and organization. The coordinators for the first IACG Campaign on the magnetotail are J. Green, A. Nishida, M. Acuna, L. Zelenyi, and R. Schmidt. Core satellite missions involved in the campaign include Geotail and Interball-Tail with a planned launch in Dec 93. Two modes of participation in IACG campaigns have been discussed; which mode will be implemented has not yet been decided. In Mode 1, anyone can participate; the PI for the data would be acknowledged on any publications. Prospective investigators would have access to ``hub data''. In Mode 2, a prospective investigator would submit a proposal stating science objectives and what data or software is to be provided or used. An `entrance fee' may be required; selection would be made by the IACG campaign coordinators. It was noted that IACG is not prepared to fund any investigations. It was suggested that the GEM SC chairman contact Jim Green regarding possible GEM involvement in IACG campaigns. It would be useful for the GEM community to be able to show or document how GEM data would be accessed by IACG investigators. * E. Friis-Christensen summarized some of the Scandanavian activities which include the Danish-Nordic ``GEM'' Cusp program, the Danish Oersted satellite to be launched in 1995 -- a key element of a coordinated research environment, the Solar-Terrestrial Physics Laboratory, linking satellite and ground-based research activities, Interball-Scandinavian cooperation in which a polar cap index will be made available on a weekly basis, a proposal for a Svalbard magnetometer array involving German, Norwegian and US investigators, and a proposed ESA M-3 mission that may include small multiple spacecraft and tail and wind monitors. * J. Samson was prepared to discuss GEM-related Canadian activities, but, in the interest of time, deferred the discussion until the next steering committee meeting. (9) Supplemental Funding for GEM Collaborative Projects: * V. Papitashvili described efforts to involve FSU scientists in collaborative GEM projects. Although there is considerable enthusiasm within the SC for such projects, funding for them lies outside the purview of the GEM steering committee. There are not sufficient funds in the GEM Program at this time to sponsor a rotating GEM fellowship. However, the Division of International Programs at NSF will consider funding worthy collaborative projects involving US-FSU scientific collaborations, as well as collaborations between US and other international scientists. The application procedure is relatively simple for US investigators holding active NSF science awards. Supplemental requests on an active NSF grant should be submitted to the appropriate NSF Program Director (e.g., UARS Facilities, Aeronomy, Magnetospheric Physics or Solar-Terrestrial Physics Program Directors), which would then be forwarded to the appropriate cooperative program office within the Division of International Programs; the request should describe briefly the rationale for the collaborative science and justify the request for participant costs, which are paid by the International Programs Division and which include items such as travel, per diem, health insurance, supplies, computer time, etc., but not salary support. For general information about cooperative programs, contact the NSF Division of International Programs; Tim Eastman can help with referrals. For additional information on collaborative projects involving FSU scientists, contact Yuri Galperin or Volodya Papitashvili, also Russell Sveda, Program Manager for the FSU and Central and Eastern Europe (202/653-5227) in the Division of International Programs. (10) Other Matters: * D. Knipp will consider the feasibility of using AMIE to determine locations of new ground-based stations, in particular, those that do not presently exist and that would be useful for generating more complete AMIE maps. (11) Next Steering Committee Meeting: * The next meeting of the GEM Steering Committee will be held sometime during the week of the 1993 Fall AGU meeting in San Francisco.