[GEM] THE GEM MESSENGER, Volume 27, Number 49

[Newsletter Editor]

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     THE GEM MESSENGER
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Volume 27, Number 49
Oct.26,2017

Reminder: Please fill out the GEM Workshop Format Poll at https://goo.gl/forms/Kjfyq3oRVzBWErOB3 by November 10.

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Table of Contents

1. GEM Mini 2017 Workshop Announcement

2. 2017 GEM Workshop Report: Modeling Methods and Validation Focus Group

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1. GEM Mini 2017 Workshop Announcement
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From: Zhonghua Xu (zxu77 at vt.edu)

GEM will be holding its annual GEM Mini workshop on December 10, 2017 at the Hilton Garden Inn New Orleans Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Sunday right before the AGU Fall Meeting. Support for this workshop is made possible by the National Science Foundation. - See more at: http://www.cpe.vt.edu/gem-mini/

In order to better track the number of participant for the mini workshop, we would like to add an option of registration information. It is voluntarily.

If you have more questions, please contact Bob Clauer (757-325-9800, rclauer at vt.edu), or Zhonghua Xu (ZXU77 at VT.EDU, 757-325-9696).


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2. 2017 GEM Workshop Report: Modeling Methods and Validation Focus Group
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From: Katherine Garcia-Sage, Mike Liemohn, Lutz Rastaetter, and Rob Redmon (katherine.garcia-sage at nasa.gov)

The Modeling Methods and Validation Focus Group held two individual sessions at the 2017 summer workshop, as well as 4 joint sessions with the ULF Wave Modeling, Dayside Kinetics, Tail Environment at Lunar Distances, and QARBM focus groups.

Monday - ULF Modeling Challenge - joint session
(Report issued by ULF Wave Modeling FG)

Tuesday - Dayside Kinetics Challenge - joint session

There were ~40 in attendance, with a ~ 50/50 split between attendees with a focus on modeling vs. data. Heli Hietala gave an overview of the challenge event 2015-11-18 1:50-3:00 UT. She showed data availability from Artemis (solar wind), MMS and Geotail (magnetopause), and SuperDARN (dawnward flows on dayside). The challenge will focus on accurate modeling of the magnetopause location, FTEs, and reconnection.

Heli then presented a talk from Rishi Mistry, who showed a two-hour difference in arrival times of a rotational discontinuity for two spacecraft in the solar wind separated in y. This data will be used to determine standard simulation inputs for the purpose of the challenge.

Heli next presented a talk from Andrew Dimmock about how the solar wind conditions here compare to average conditions. This event is rare in that it is driven by a large Bz without By and a density larger than average.   

Tosh Nishimura spoke on ground-based observations for the challenge event. He showed that reconnection jets in the magnetosphere and magnetosheath observed with MMS lead to ionospheric flows to the north and dawn. TS01 was used for mapping.

Christine Gabrielse presented observations from THEMIS, which was in the magnetotail during this event.

Xochitl Blanco-Cano showed magnetosheath wave observations from MMS near and inside of the jet. She found higher plasma beta inside the jet and mirror mode waves from a temperature anisotropy.

Rick Wilder presented MMS observations of parallel E-fields and oblique whistler waves on the dayside separatrix.

Steve Petrinec presented MMS/HPCA observations of minor ions in FTEs and O+ ions in the sheath.

Lutz Rastaetter presented a talk from Ilja Honkonen about PAMHD, a particle-assisted MHD code. This model is implemented at its first (MHD-only) stage and will soon be run
at higher resolution. Test particle and particle-in-cell modeling are being added and will be available in the near future.

Yuxi Chen presented MHD-EPIC simulations of an FTE during an idealized event. 

Tuesday - Conductance Challenge

Vania Jordanova presented recent advances in the conductance specification of RAM-SCB. The code includes a self-consistent E-field, with effects from wave-particle interactions. Using an event-specific wave distribution results in stronger waves than a statistical approach. The Robinson formula is used to determine the conductance from the resulting particle precipitation. There was discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of using a conductance based on precipitation patterns vs. current.

Rob Redmon presented a talk by Ryan McGranaghan discussing a conductance calculation from DMSP observations, the GLOW model, and MSIS.

George Khazanov showed that looking only at the magnetospheric loss cone misses the ~10 eV  peak in secondary electron fluxes.

Burcu Kosar showed that results from Aurorasaurus indicate visible aurora about 60% of the time at lower latitudes than what OVATION predicts. 

Katherine Garcia-Sage presented a talk by Bob Robinson that indicated conductance can be determined from AMPERE results and showed the results for the challenge event Oct 13-15, 2016.

We encourage continuing participation in the first conductance challenge: Oct 13-15, 2016. Please come to present data and model results at the upcoming mini-GEM in December, and consider contributing results for upcoming model/data comparisons.

Tuesday - Mid-Tail Challenge - joint session
(Report issued by Tail at Lunar Distances FG)

Wednesday - QARBM - joint session
(Report issued by QARBM FG)

Thursday - General Validation Session

Howard Singer discussed NOAA’s Metrics and Validation activities, including space weather forecasts available online. He discussed working on a plan to improve funding for operations to research and validation.

Seth Claudepierre discussed obstacles in global MHD model validation, focusing on differences between the solar wind specification at the upstream boundary and the solar wind that eventually reaches the bow shock. Higher frequency fluctuations may be filtered out, spurious density perturbations may form. He also identified the gap region inside of the Earthward boundary as a potential source of error for field line resonance modeling. He compared meteorological vs. climatological validation methods, and temporal vs. spatial ambiguity in data/model comparisons.

Dan Weimer presented the ionospheric equivalent current as a metric for comparison to data or model results. It is derived from magnetometer data and can be used to derive conductivity.

Jason Shuster showed a novel model/data comparison technique to help resolve some of the temporal/spatial ambiguity in modeling of the reconnection site.

Alexa Halford reported on the efforts of the CCMC/LWS Tracking Progress in Space Weather working team. She discussed Application Usability Levels (AULs) for tracking progress along the research to operations pipeline. The working group is soliciting information here (http://spacewx.weebly.com/tracking-progress.html) on tools and methods to be entered into a database for metrics and space weather resources. She advertised the upcoming AGU Fall Meeting panel session on this topic.

Gabor Facsko presented results of a year-long simulation of the GUMICS global MHD model. He showed simulation output at a 5 minute cadence from Jan 29, 2002 - Feb 2, 2003 compared with Cluster results, focusing on the dayside boundary locations for the solar wind vs. sheath vs magnetosphere.

Yari Collado-Vega showed results of a CCMC magnetopause location challenge for global MHD models at geosynchronous orbit. She identified uncertainties in making the comparisons based on ionospheric conductance, ring current effects, and OMNI vs. other solar wind propagation techniques.


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