Table of Contents ====================================================================== 1. Minutes of GEM Steering Committee Meeting Snowmass, CO, June 22, 2012 2. Space Weather Forecasting Contest ====================================================================== *************************** ** THE GEM MESSENGER ** *************************** Volume 22, Number 27 September 17, 2012 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Minutes of GEM Steering Committee Meeting Snowmass, CO, June 22, 2012 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Clauer Attending: David Sibeck, Eric Donovan, Mike Wiltberger, Liz MacDonald, Emma Spanswick, Ray Walker, Masha Kuznetsove, Heidi Kawano, Mona Kessel, Joe Borovsky, Howard Singer, Nathaniel Frissell, Roxanne Katus, Peter Chi, Jon Berchem, Karl-Heinz Trattner, Mike Henderson, Larry Kepko, David Murr, Bill Lotko, Stan Sazykin, Slava Merkin, Bob Clauer, Xia Cai. 1. Future Meeting Planning Meeting began with a presentation from Snowmass Westin regarding proposal to host GEM Workshop during June 2013 at same rates as we had this year. Discussion of process to determine location of GEM Workshop. Workshop coordinator provides options. Steering Committee discusses and makes selection. Clauer presents option for GEM Workshop in Portsmouth, VA. Discussion of the need to coordinate with CEDAR and SHINE and to hold meetings during adjacent weeks. General feeling is that ties between GEM and CEDAR should be strengthened. Following further discussion, committee voted to accept the proposal from Snowmass to hold the GEM Workshop there in June 2013 and to explore holding in Portsmouth, VA in 2014 (possibly with SHINE). Need to arrange visit to look at facilities. Clauer should coordinate with Joe Borovsky to explore interest in holding GEM and SHINE during adjacent weeks in Portsmouth. Could also look at Annapolis – Themis meeting was held there with reasonable expense. Student opinions was that most people were indifferent -- somewhere else would be ok, see somewhere else in the country. 2. Student report 74 students at the meeting. Students were particularly pleased with the meeting. Tutorials - added 'hot topics' tutorial and tutorials specific to the two new focus groups. Students really like the Condo's. Student funding process was much better this year. Students are still interested in having a student poster judging competition. 2/3 of students were new this year. Many unfamiliar with 'gem' informality. Recommendations: 1. Good to post schedules on wiki at the beginning of the week so students know what will be happening (maybe this could be done each morning). Wiki can be edited by focus group leaders. Need to advertise this. Still, want to avoid AGU style of meeting. Topics, perhaps, should be the emphasis. If focus group leaders are preparing information for workshop - it should be posted somewhere (probably on the wiki). Must be coordinated with Peter Chi to do this in a timely way. Maybe advertise at end of Plenary Session - announce focus group activities for each day. 2. Students don't know names of senior scientists - have presenters put name on bottom of each slide 3. Could coffee be available all day? 4. Participant lists before meeting made available. 5. In redefining the purpose of GEM, it is important to stress the importance of developing the relationship between students and more senior researchers as the students to transition from student to colleague. 6. Students like the CEDAR model of poster judging. 7. Roxanne Katus introduced as new student representative to SC. David Murr and Colby Lemon volunteered to organize the student poster competition for the next GEM summer workshop. We need to supply a list of students coming to the workshop to Murr/Lemon. 3. Replacing people leaving the steering committee. This year we anticipated this and have contacted a number of people who could fill a role on the steering committee. - Margaret Chen elected member at large - Jerry Goldstein elected to Inner Magnetosphere and Storms research coordinator - Katariina Nykyri elected to Dayside research coordinator - Sorin Zaharia elected to Tail research coordinator - Marc Lessard elected to Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling research coordinator - Frank Toffoletto elected to GGCM research coordinator 4. Announcements from liaisons. Shine: Joe Borovsky is new liaison - will look into establishing more coordination between GEM and SHINE Canada (Rankin sent a written report): Themis will be supported at least until end on 2013. ESA Swarm satellite & Knudsen instrument (drift meter) should be launched in Fall. (Low altitude magnetometers, drift meter to get convection). E-POP hopes to launch in January RISER (Canadian southward facing radar in Resolute - starting operations). 3 polarDARN radars operating now. CCMC: want to do more tutorials - did one at this workshop. GEM/CEDAR challenge being supported. Request to have session at mini- workshop to continue progress on this. We can do this. New versions of models being received and implemented. Supporting education during summer schools will continue. Masha is acting director at CCMC. SWPC: Space weather workshop next year is April 16 - 19. Also anticipate that SWPC will be hiring someone who is adept at transitioning MHD models to operation. Hope to hire postdoc in January (National Research Council support) 5. Development of White Paper to redefine and promote GEM program. Next is discussion of White Paper to support NSF program manager to promote the GEM program. (Peter Chi taking more detailed notes on this.) Audience for paper are upper management at NSF, public affairs people at NSF, partners at other agencies, other Divisions and Programs at NSF (physics, high performance computing, education). Need 2-page executive summary. Purpose: define a program that can withstand budget buffeting, define GEM (establish new GEM goals). How are we part of the decadal survey? Various ideas presented and discussed: Education is a fundamental component; GEM has an important baring on space weather; Desire to partner with other agencies (e.g. NOAA); Need to state: what we do, why we do, how we do. Also, somewhere key achievements made by past GEM program. Modular GGCM -- Is this still our purpose? Provide a List of deliverables - some done, some still working on - ties future to past accomplishments. A previous report was prepared by Tom Hill (Rice) with some NSF funding. Some parts of this could be excerpted for this new report. Perhaps. Jeff Thayer recently presented the new CEDAR document (strategic plan). We might want to query people about this CEDAR report GEM Wiki has links to early GEM documents and plans. We need to establish a time table - Ray would like to have by April 2013. Therefore like to have a good outline or preliminary draft by Fall AGU. Discussion of what GEM is now: Development of GGCM no longer primary goal. Goal is to 'understand' how geospace works - to enable prediction. What is deliverable? Modeling should remain key aspect of GEM - models express our understanding. Modeling distinguishes us from other groups. Coordination is another aspect that distinguishes us from others. System level view locates GEM between solar wind and atmosphere. This also distinguishes us. Specific GEM focus activities examine particular processes that can be developed into modules for GGCMs. Bring together data/observations and models and theory - very important aspect of GEM. There is a need to further advance the models and GEM plays a key role. GEM is a vehicle to organize community to focus efforts toward understanding aspects of geospace in order to improve models that express our understanding. GEM brings together data/observations, model, and theory to develop this understanding. Propose that Anthony and Slava wordsmith purpose of GEM - send to Sibeck. Ray will call upon someone and put together a small team to do this. Note that in the next phase of GEM greater effort in the utilization of observations to constrain and feed models (data assimilations). 6. Meeting adjourned. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Space Weather Forecasting Contest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Brian Curtis Registration is now open for the third-annual space weather forecasting contest, which begins on October 1st, 2012 [http://swxcontest.gmu.edu/]. This contest, sponsored by the Space Weather Laboratory at George Mason University, is intended to bring space weather to a broader community by allowing interested students and researchers to get hands-on experience with space weather prediction. Students and professionals from around the world may participate in this informal competition. The contest will run for 20 weeks; participants predict the daily maximum values of planetary K- index, particle flux >=10 MeV (measured by GOES-15), and X-ray peak brightness (measured by GOES-15) against models, algorithms, and other forecasters. Awards for the best individual forecaster and team forecast are given at the end of each academic semester. The contest web page includes a link to a forum that is used for announcements, discussion, and debate. +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | 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 | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+