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			 **   THE GEM MESSENGER   **
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						     Volume 10, Number 28
						     June 13, 2000

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Call for Participation in the GEM Tail/Substorm Modeling Sessions
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From: John Lyon and Jim Drake
      (lyon at tinman.dartmouth.edu, drake at glue.umd.edu)

There will be three Tail/Substorm Modeling Sessions this year. They will
each address an important topic with regard to our understanding of
substorms and tail dynamics. The emphasis will be on the discussion of
where the modeling efforts should go to best study these problems, but
current results are obviously important in this discussion. Anyone wanting
to make a short presentation at any of the sessions should contact John
Lyon (lyon at tinman.dartmouth.edu).


Substorm Triggering:  1:30-3:20 Wednesday, Club Room

A number of observational studies indicate that substorms may be triggered
by Northward turnings of the IMF, but no clear physical mechanism has
been put forward. This session will discuss the theoretical progress in
understanding triggering and try to develop a consensus on what modeling
work should be done in the future. This will include the question whether
there are observational events that provide a particularly good framework
for testing triggering theories.  

3-D Reconnection: 3:45-5:30 Thursday, Cowboy's

The first GEM reconnection challenge gave rise to a consensus about the
operation of 2-D collisionless reconnection. We would like to decide on an
new challenge that would be closer to the real situation in the
tail.  A tentative schedule for the second
reconnection challenge would be to determine the problem at Snowmass with
preliminary reports from modellers at the Fall AGU and finish up at next
year's Snowmass.  

Ballooning and other interchange-like modes: 9:05-10:05 Friday

This will be a short session to sort out what questions need to be
addressed by the modelers with regard to interchange type modes. Ballooning
modes have been suggested as the onset mechanism for substorms leading to
the disrutption of the thin current sheet near the earth. Interchange could
also be the mechanism causing bursty bulk flows. 

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