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			 **   THE GEM MESSENGER   **
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						     Volume 11, Number 12
						     May 14, 2001
						     

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2001 GEM Snowmass meeting -
Tail/Substorm Observations Working Group
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From: Mark Moldwin (mmoldwin at igpp.ucla.edu)
      Shin Ohtani (ohtani at fluxgate.jhuapl.edu)

The substorm community currently is studying the causal relationship 
between processes in the mid-tail and the near-geosynchronous orbit 
(NGO) region during substorm onset. The debate can be summarized as 
attempting to understand the relationship of mid-tail reconnection 
(the near-Earth-neutral-line (NENL) model) with processes in the NGO 
(current disruption model). The Tail/Substorm Observations Working 
Group will focus on clarifying the observations used to understand 
those processes. Two invited speakers (Erickson, Voronkov) will 
describe the observational evidence for substorm onset initiation 
occurring in the near-Earth geosynchronous region while Shiokawa and 
Kepko will summarize the observational evidence for substorm 
initiation beginning in the mid-tail.

The goal is to determine if the controversy is due to examination of 
different datasets or different interpretations of the same datasets. 
We hope these reviews will stimulate discussion on how to derive an 
experiment to help resolve this issue. We invite everyone who is 
interested in this topic
to participate.  Short presentations are encouraged. Please contact 
one of the organizers if you would like to make a contributed 
presentation.

GEM will be held June 17-22, 2001 
(http://gem.rice.edu/~gem/gem2001/gem_2001.html).

Shin Ohtani (ohtani at fluxgate.jhuapl.edu), Mark Moldwin (mmoldwin at igpp.ucla.edu)

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