*************************** ** THE GEM MESSENGER ** *************************** Volume 22, Number 5 May 18, 2012 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Possible Joint SPA-SPD Meeting ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James A. Klimchuk Several months ago, I conducted a survey about a possible joint meeting between the AGU Space Physics and Aeronomy (SPA) Section and the AAS Solar Physics Division (SPD). The motivation for the idea is reproduced below from the original article. The responses were overwhelmingly in favor of a joint meeting (94%), and many people were enthusiastically supportive in their written comments. However, the total number of respondents was rather low (79). Before proceeding with a joint meeting, we need to know whether there would be strong participation from all communities, especially from the GEM geospace community. We can count on many solar and inner heliospheric scientists, but how many magnetospheric scientists would attend? Please help by sending an e-mail to James.A.Klimchuk@nasa.gov with a simple "yes" or "no" in the subject line in response to this question: If a joint SPA-SPD meeting were held every third year in the spring timeframe, would you likely attend? Please indicate in the body of the message whether your primary AGU affiliation is with SA (Aeronomy), SM (Magnetospheric Physics), or SH (Solar and Heliospheric Physics). Thank you very much for your help. From the original article: As many of you will recall, there was a tradition for the Solar Physics Division (SPD) of the American Astronomical Society to meet jointly with American Geophysical Union every third spring. This practice stopped in 2008 when the AGU switched to the Meeting of the Americas format. We are now exploring whether there is interest in restarting joint meetings, but this time with only the Space Physics and Aeronomy (SPA) Section, not the full AGU. The suggestion is to meet every third year in the spring timeframe. This would constitute the annual SPD meeting for that year, as before, but it would be an entirely new meeting for the rest of the SPA community. There would be cross-disciplinary sessions among solar, heliospheric, magnetospheric, and ionospheric physics, but a majority of sessions would likely be "stand alone." The primary benefit is to gather together the full Heliophysics community at one venue. Valuable interactions would take place during poster sessions, formal social events (e.g., ice breaker and banquet), and informal gatherings at restaurants and "refreshment establishments." While scientific exchange is the main purpose of the meeting, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the whole Heliophysics community must stand united in order to maintain and, hopefully, increase its support from the national funding agencies. A joint meeting would be one way to promote this unity and would be an ideal opportunity for the community to advocate and to develop strategies for advocating our science. +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | 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. | | | | GEM Messenger is also posted online via newsfeed at | | http://heliophysics.blogspot.com and | | http://www.facebook.com/heliophysics | | | | Back issues are available at ftp://igpp.ucla.edu/scratch/gem/ | | | | URL of GEM Home Page: http://aten.igpp.ucla.edu/gemwiki | | Workshop Information: http://www.cpe.vt.edu/gem/index.html | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+