*************************** ** THE GEM MESSENGER ** *************************** Volume 14, Number 4 January 31, 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------- Minutes from the December 2003 GEM Steering Committee Meeting -------------------------------------------------------------- From: Frank Toffoletto Dec 7. 2003, Time: 6:30-9:00 PM, San Francisco Marriott Hotel. Present: 1. Aaron Ridley, Univ. Michigan 2. Anthony Chan, Rice Univ.; 3. Bill Petersen, NASA; 4. Brian Fraser, Univ. Newcastle; 5. Chris Russell, UCLA; 6. Ennio Sanchez, SRI; 7. Eric Donovan, Univ. Calgary; 8. Frank Toffoletto, Rice Univ.; 9. Gang Lu, NCAR; 10. Howard Singer, NOAA; 11. Joachim Birn, LANL; 12. Joachim Raeder, UNH; 13. Joshua Semeter, SRI; 14. Kile Baker, NSF; 15. Mark Moldwin, UCLA; 16. Masha Kuznetsava, NASA/CCMC; 17. Michelle Reno, Univ. Michigan; 18. Mike Liemohn, Univ. Michigan; 19. Ray Greenwald, APL; 20. Robert Strangeway, UCLA (chair); 21. Vladimir Papitashvili, NSF; 22. Xochitl Blanco-Cano, UNAM Frank Toffoletto outlined plans for the upcoming GEM workshops. The summer 2004 workshop will again be held in Snowmass, Colorado during the week of June 20 - 25, with the IM/S at the beginning of the week, the new campaign during the middle of the week and MIC at the end. Placing the MIC campaign at the end of the week will allow interested participants to attend the CEDAR meeting which is scheduled to be held the week of June 27 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. There will be 9 tutorial slots for the 2004 workshop, 2 each for MIC, IM/S, GGCM and the new campaign (Global Interactions -- see below) with the remaining slot to be used for the student-sponsored tutorial. The traditional Wednesday agency report will be shortened to 1 presentation to be given by Kile Baker with input from the other agencies. The steering committee meeting will likely be held the evening of Friday June 25. The 2005 summer workshop is to be held jointly with CEDAR in Santa Fe, NM during the week of June 27 - July 1 at the La Fonda Hotel. Joint sessions between the GEM and CEDAR workshops will be strongly encouraged. The location and date for the 2006 summer workshop is undecided; enquiries are being made for the availability of Snowmass during the latter half of June 2006. As the GEM workshop continues to grow, it is quickly outgrowing the facilities at the available Silvertree Hotel. Alternative venues will be explored. Dennis Gallagher and Mark Moldwin are scheduled to step down from the steering committee during the summer of 2004. Several replacement names were discussed. Mike Liemohn was elected to replace Anthony Chan as the new IM/S Campaign Chair. Since Mike was a campaign coordinator, a replacement for him was also discussed. Ray Greenwald reported for the MI Coupling campaign. Bob Schunk has been invited to give a GEM tutorial at the '04 workshop. An observing campaign is in the planning stage that seeks to look in detail the effect of time varying energy input, during moderate to quiet times, in the ionosphere that results in plasma outflow. A specific challenge, however, has yet to be formulated. Mike Liemohn reported for the Inner Magnetosphere/Storms (IM/S) campaign on the outcome of the Dec 2003 mini workshop. As part of the IM/S component of the GEM mini-workshop, two sessions were held: one on the IM/S challenge and the other on ULF waves. It was decided that the IM/S challenge will consist of 2 parts: plasmasphere and ring current. For the plasmapause challenge, the target dataset will be plasmapause location inferred from EUV data and ground-based measurements. For the ring current, the challenge will be reproducing magnetic field measurements from in situ data taken from Polar, GOES and CLUSTER. In order to participate in the challenge, it is expected that some models will require further development. The choice of the two events will be finalized sometime in January, 2004. As part of the ground rules for the challenge, modelers will be allowed to fine-tune their respective model using the challenge datasets. However, modelers will be strongly encouraged to be forthcoming when presenting the results from the challenge. The ULF working group met to discuss the ULF wave index and the need for such an index for general use for geomagnetic activity. As part of the SCOSTEP CAWSES program, there will be a global ULF campaign during the equinox where 5 days of data will be collected. The analysis of this data will be discussed during the summer GEM workshop. Other items discussed in the workshop included the use of ULF waves for determining the plasmapause location and the determination of mass loading using ULF waves to infer ion and electron density. The long term plans for the campaign were also discussed; the campaign is planning to continue for the next 2.5 years; full years in 2004 and 2005 and winding down in a half-year in 2006. Bob Strangeway, reporting for the GGCM campaign, described the outcome of an ad-hoc workshop on the GGCM that was held in October 2003 at Dartmouth College. The workshop was hosted by Mary Hudson. The purpose of the meeting was to decide what role GGCM should play within GEM. Since the BU CISM and University of Michigan CSEM programs are taking over what GGCM was initially designed to do, there has been some question as to role of GGCM. As a result of this workshop, the committee came up with the following recommendations/observations: 1. The GGCM is central to the GEM campaign, 2. GGCM should be a guiding principle for all the GEM campaigns, 3. CISM and CSEM have not preempted GEMıs goal in building GGCMs, 4. GEM is an input and driver for developing the physical understanding of models, 5. GGCM has a role in addressing models validity, 6. GGCM should provide metrics and other tests as well as address "nuts and bolts" issues, 7. GEM/GGCM role is in many ways vital to and complementary with the other programs. There will be a GGCM coordinating committee (GGCMCC) that will act as a liaison to all GEM campaigns, to identify subjects that are specifically germane to the GGCM and to interact with other programs such as CISM, CSEM and the CCMC. The GGCM will not be a campaign, but is more of a process. Several names for the GGCMCC were discussed and recommendations were made; the committee will include the campaign chairs as ex-officio members. Bob Strangeway also reported on the status of the new campaign and the discussion that were held on it before and during the GEM mini- workshop. The new campaign will be tentatively entitled "Global Interactions" (GI) and will deal with the physics of the transition from the solar wind into the plasma sheet, but will ignore internal processes. To start with, there will be 2 working groups: one focusing on plasma acceleration and transport and associated kinetic processes and the other on reconnection dynamics, cusp and LLBL. These 2 groups will define sessions for the summer meeting. Kile Baker pointed out that in order to have a GEM competition for 2004, both campaign coordinators and a definition for the campaign will be needed by the end of the summer '04 workshop. Several names for campaign coordinators were discussed and recommendations were made. Kile Baker (NSF) reported that the NSF budget will likely be static for '05 and '06. For 2003 GEM competition, 25 proposals were submitted, of which there were 7 awards (28% success rate.) The joint CEDAR-GEM MIC competition received 22 proposals, of which there were 6 awards (27% success rate). The total funding for the FY04 MIC was $713k of which $378k is for magnetospheric physics. The second GEM postdoc competition received 6 proposals, the award was given to Li-Jen Chen of the University of Iowa. For the FY 04 GEM competition 16 proposals were received (11 IM/S, 2 GGCM and 2 for the workshop and GEM communications). The available funding is only $150k for the science proposals, however the base program may be a source of additional funds. For the medium ITR competition, 1460 proposals were received; of the winners, 3 were space physics related (Michigan, Georgia Tech/ CYBERNET, and NJIT). Funding from the ATM program was used to leverage these grants. The ITR 2004 competition will likely be the last big year for this program and $90M will be available. ITR will be replaced by cyber infrastructure (http://www.cyrdas.org/), the scope of which is currently being developed by a steering committee. Space Weather proposals are due Jan 16, but there is only $280k available which is enough for 1 award. However, in 2005 the Space Weather competition will have ~$2M available for competition. Vladimir Papitashvili reported that there is funding available from the NSF office of polar programs for GEM related programs. They also plan to have a postdoc program, that will have a March deadline. Bill Peterson (NASA) reported that the NASA GI program received 82 proposals for $1.5M, of which 43 were geospace related (16 geospace proposals were funded). As a result of the senior review, conducted in the fall 2003, the GI program will be doubled and will include a special CLUSTER theory/modeling/data analysis component for $1M and similar a RHESSI component for $0.5 M. The GI program for next year will be $7.5M. The SR&T success rate for 2004 was about 18%. 2004 will be the last year Peterson will be at NASA. Masha Kuznetsova for CCMC reported that an MOA between CCMC and CISM is underway. The CCMC workshop was held in Maui October 28-31, 2003 with ~45 attendees. New models have recently been added to the CCMC including a solar coronal model (MAS) and a Heliospheric Tomography Model. The Fok radiation belt model will also become available. Some effort is being made into making the CCMC website more user friendly. Howard Singer reported that NOAA is still waiting to see what the fate of the spending bill will be. The recent House Committee on Science hearing on "What is Space Weather and Who Should Forecast It?" was quite positive and raised the visibility of the SEC program and our entire communities space weather activities. One consequence of this hearing (as well as the large storms during the fall of 2003) was the significant increase in the number of SEC customers. Moving SEC into the National Weather Service (NWS) in FY05 is under consideration by NOAA. Space weather week will be on the week of April 13-16, 2004 in Boulder, Colorado and will be co-sponsored with NSF, NASA and AFRL. Brian Fraser is currently at SEC as the current NRC visiting scientist. The next NRC Postdoctoral and Visiting Scientist Opportunity will be in February, 2004. Chris Russell, representing Dave Webb of SHINE (Solar, Heliospheric and Interplanetary Environment), reported that the next SHINE workshop will be 28 June - 2 July, 2004 at Big Sky MT. While the NSF goal for SHINE is for it to reach parity with GEM and CEDAR, there will be no SHINE competition for 2004.. SHINE is moving towards data campaign for studies like GEM and CEDAR. The campaign events include 12-15 May, 1997,1-2 May 1998, 21 April and 22 August 2001. The AGU/ Sun-Earth Connection periods include: April 2001 and the recent Oct-Nov., 2003 events. The international heliospheric year will hold its organizational meeting in April 2004 in Sac Peak, NM. Josh Semeter (CEDAR) reported that NSF has funded the Advanced Modular Incoherent Scatter Radar (ISR) facility (AMISR), an electronically steerable and relocatable phased array ISR. The AMISR consists of individual faces each with 4096 dipole elements. The first AMISR face will be deployed at Poker Flat, Alaska, in the spring of 2005. The second and third faces will be deployed at Resolute Bay (deep polar cap) in the spring of 2006 and 2007, respectively. More information can be found at http://transport.sri.com/AMISR. Brian Fraser (Australia) reported that the FedSat satellite with a UCLA-based magnetometer on board, is still operational and is collecting data about 2/3rds of the time. It suffered a SEU during the November storm over the northern polar region. The cooperative research systems program is coming to an end but there are plans to continue this. He also reported on the status of funding for FedSat data analysis. The Tiger radar is operational and there is funding to put in a second radar in New Zealand with funding from AFOSR and ARC (Australia). The WARS 04 meeting (URSI) will be held in Tasmania in February. Eric Donovan (Canada) reported on the Canadian Geospace Monitoring (CGSM). Since 1994 Canopus has been in serious trouble because of the closure of the lab that ran this program. CGSM is a revamping of ground- based monitoring program and hopes to replace the Canopus program. A 3 year proposal that was submitted in 2003 is currently undergoing contract development. There is a push for 2 polar radars (PolarDarn) to fill in the data gap over the polar cap. One radar is likely to be funded using infrastructure proposal in the next 2 years. Ian Mann has a received support for a $1.2 M program to enhance the fluxgate magnetometer arrays under the CGSM program. Eric Donovan will receive $800 K of funding for optical instrumentation (5 multi-spectral cameras). They have also received an information technology infrastructure grant to overhaul the Canopus sites to connect them to the internet. He also reported on the status of the Themis project, which is a 5 satellite constellation-class mission that is designed to look at the microphysics in the region associated with substorm onset. The orbital parameters of this mission will be set to have apogee conjunction over central Canada so as to make use of the optical ground-based instrumentation. There was an AO to fund 2 concept studies which has had 3 responses. The outcome of that competition will be funding for 2 concept studies, one for Ravens and the other for Orbitals mission, an outer radiation belt mission run by Ian Mann. Michelle Reno (Univ. Michigan) outlined plans for the student tutorials for the upcoming 2004 workshop. She plans to ask the students to give presentations of material they are not familiar with, restrict the talks to 15 minutes and only have students give presentations. She also plans to start a student website that will include a photo directory, an acronym dictionary and a list of GEM-related data and models that are on the web. Chris Russell described the status of the GEM Communications program. Peter Chi is currently the editor of the GEM Messenger which has had 48 issues to date. The annual GEMstone appeared in September and has reports from all the campaign working groups. Meeting adjourned ~9:00 PM Notes transcribed by F. Toffoletto, Jan. 2004. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |To subscribe GEM Messengers, send an e-mail to | | with the following command in the body of your e-mail message: | | subscribe gem | |To remove yourself from the mailing list, the command is: | | unsubscribe gem | | | |To broadcast a message to the GEM community, please contact Peter Chi at | | | |Please use plain text as the format of your submission. | | | |URL of GEM Home Page: http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/gem/Welcome.html | |Workshop Information: http://gem.rice.edu/~gem | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+