[GEM] THE GEM MESSENGER, Volume 29, Number 45

[Newsletter Editor]

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     THE GEM MESSENGER
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Volume 29, Number 45
Dec.19,2019

Announcement submission website:
https://forms.gle/FXxfwokFxhUy1KcB9

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Table of Contents

1. Mini-GEM Debrief

2. EGU 2020 Session ST2.9: Generation and Propagation of Ultra-Low Frequency Waves in Near-Earth Space and other Planetary Magnetospheres

3. AOGS 2020: Session ST13 Magnetic Structures in Planetary Magnetospheres: Observations and Simulations

4. SCOSTEP/PRESTO Newsletter Vol.21

5. Postdoctoral Position at Imperial College London in Magnetospheric Physics

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1. Mini-GEM Debrief
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From: Paul Cassak (Paul.Cassak at mail.wvu.edu)

Mini-GEM took place the day before AGU, and this message is to share a few matters of interest.  First, Mini-GEM was likely the biggest ever - it approached 250 people!  Attendance at the student session was high, as well.  Most importantly, there were excellent and lively focus group sessions.  Special thanks to the UNH group (Chris Mouikis and Chia-Lin Huang, with Umbe Cantu) for their efforts in setting up the meeting, which ran very smoothly.  The Steering Committee had its winter meeting following the sessions, and here are some highlights:

(1) I know you’re all waiting on bated breath to find out the plans for the 2020 summer workshop.  The good news is that the process will be finalized soon, so you can expect an official announcement probably early in the new year.  For now, please pencil in that GEM will be July 18-24, with July 18 a joint day with SHINE (which will take place the prior week at the same hotel - please consider attending both!), July 19 being student day, and July 20-24 being the GEM workshop proper.  The contract for the meeting site is being worked on as we speak.  We will send out a friendly “HI” as soon as the location is finalized (did you catch the hint?!?).

(2) Two new focus groups were selected.  The competition was stiff, as there were six applications that were all fantastic.  The two new focus groups to begin in 2020 are “Self-Consistent Inner Magnetospheric Modeling” (Cristian Ferradas et al.) and “The impact of the cold plasma in magnetospheric physics” (Gian Luca Delzanno et al.).  Thanks to all the proposers!  Information will be put on the website in the coming weeks.

(3) It was previously announced that the Metrics and Validation focus group was being changed to a standing Resource Group for the community.  We are pleased to announce that Alexa Halford and Josh Rigler were selected to join Mike Liemohn and Lutz Rastaetter on the group.  Please contact any of them for support for your GEM metrics and validation needs!

There were many other matters that were addressed that will be summarized in a GEM blog post.  Also, we will publicize the SC meeting minutes as soon as possible.  It is always our goal to have them distributed within a week of the meeting, but with the holidays it might take a little bit longer so we thank you for your patience.  As always, please reach out to your favorite steering committee member with any comments, suggestions, or concerns.  Enjoy the holiday season!


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2. EGU 2020 Session ST2.9: Generation and Propagation of Ultra-Low Frequency Waves in Near-Earth Space and other Planetary Magnetospheres
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From: Martin Archer, Marina Georgiou, Vyacheslav Pilipenko, Kazue Takahashi, Lucile Turc (margeo at phys.uoa.gr)

Dear colleagues,

As conveners of session ST2.9 entitled “Generation and propagation of ultra-low frequency waves in near-Earth space and other planetary magnetospheres” at the EGU General Assembly to be held between 3 and 8 May 2020 in Vienna, Austria, we would like to invite researchers in the geospace environment modeling community to consider submitting an abstract.

Abstracts can be directly submitted from: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2020/session/37662 

The focus of the session is on ULF waves that permeate all regions of near-Earth space, from the foreshock, extending upstream of the quasi-parallel bow shock, through the magnetosheath, to the inner magnetosphere. They play a fundamental role in the transfer of electromagnetic energy from the solar wind to the magnetosphere, in the acceleration and loss of trapped particles in the inner magnetosphere, and contribute to magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling. ULF waves are also observed in all planetary environments in our solar system, from Mercury to the giant planets, and even in Ganymede's mini-magnetosphere. 

Among the outstanding questions in the study of magnetospheric ULF waves is the nature of their generation and how it affects features of wave-particle interactions. At Earth, the upstream solar wind conditions are known to affect strongly the generation of ULF waves, either through the direct transmission of upstream fluctuations, or in creating favourable conditions for the waves to develop. For example, high solar wind speeds are conducive to the development of Kelvin-Helmholtz waves at the magnetopause.

In this session, we welcome contributions focusing on the generation mechanisms (internal and/or external) and the propagation of ULF waves in near-Earth space and at other planets, based on spacecraft and ground-based observations, numerical simulations, theoretical studies, and any combination thereof. ULF waves include for example (but are not limited to) foreshock waves, magnetosheath waves, such as mirror modes or Alfvén-ion cyclotron waves, Kelvin-Helmholtz and surface waves at the magnetopause, and field-line resonances. Presentations investigating the effects of ULF waves on their environment are also encouraged.

The deadline for abstract submission is 15 January 2020, 13:00 CET.

Kind regards,
the conveners


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3. AOGS 2020: Session ST13 Magnetic Structures in Planetary Magnetospheres: Observations and Simulations
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From: Gang Kai Poh, Wei-Jie Sun, Dogacan Ozturk, Shiyong Huang (gangkai.poh at nasa.gov)

Dear colleagues, 

We would like to call to your attention our session on Magnetic Structures in Planetary Magnetospheres (ST13) to be held at the upcoming AOGS 2020 conference in South Korea from 28 June to 4 July. Please consider submitting an abstract to present your latest results in our session, the details for which are included below. Also, please note, the abstract submission deadline is 21 January 2020.

Session ST13: Magnetic Structures in Planetary Magnetospheres: Observations and Simulations

Magnetic structures are ubiquitous throughout the solar system. Examples of magnetic structures include, but are not limited to, magnetic flux ropes, dipolarization fronts, magnetic vortices and cavities. These structures are consequences of fundamental space plasma processes (e.g. magnetic reconnection and plasma instabilities) and are important for driving MHD to kinetic-scale dynamics of different plasma regions within different planetary environments. Flux ropes, which have a wide range of spatial scales, are formed by either magnetic reconnection at the dayside magnetopause and plasma sheet of intrinsic planetary magnetospheres or Kelvin-Helmholtz instability at the regions of solar wind interactions with planetary ionospheres at Venus and Mars. Dipolarization fronts form the leading edge of newly-reconnected closed field lines embedded in high speed bursty bulk flows and are important for the transfer of flow energy to plasma heating and compression of the magnetic field, energetic particle acceleration and formation of the substorm current wedge. Magnetic vortices and their ionospheric counterparts, the travelling convection vortices, are commonly observed in Earth’s magnetosphere. They are important for the transport of plasma across different plasma boundaries, and the generation of field-aligned currents in the terrestrial ionosphere. Magnetic cavities (magnetic holes), characterized by significant decrease of the magnetic field magnitude, are frequently observed in space and astrophysical plasma, and have spatial scales varying from sub-ion to thousands of ion gyro-radius; they can affect the particle dynamic and energy exchange between plasma and fields. Despite their prevalence throughout the solar system, many aspect of the magnetic structures mentioned above remain unexplored, especially their origins, dynamics, roles in particle and energy transport, and in the global magnetosphere–ionosphere–thermosphere coupling. This session solicits contributions on the fundamental physics of magnetic structures in the magnetospheres of Earth and other planets (inner and outer planets, including Venus and Mars) using spacecraft observations and numerical simulations.

Sincerely, 
Gangkai Poh, Wei-Jie Sun, Dogacan Ozturk, Shiyong Huang


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4. SCOSTEP/PRESTO Newsletter Vol.21
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From: Kazuo Shiokawa (shiokawa at nagoya-u.jp)

>From Kazuo Shiokawa (SCOSTEP President) 

SCOSTEP/PRESTO Newsletter volume 21 has now been published.  The PDF file is available at https:/www.bc.edu/scostep. Below are the contents of this volume.  

Contents of SCOSTEP/PRESTO Newsletter Volume 21

Articles
1. SCOSTEP Executives and Bureau Members
2. Message from the Newly Elected SCOSTEP President
3. Transition of the Office of the Scientific Secretary
4. Bureau Meeting Report
5. SCOSTEP Mailing Lists
6. SCOSTEP Visiting Scholarship (SVS) Program

Meeting Report
1. Capacity Building and Outreach Activities
2. The International Space Weather Initiative Workshop (ISWI)
3. The VarSITI Completion General Symposium 2019
4. 4th Edition of the School of Space Weather IMAO, Senegal, Africa
5. International Beacon Satellite Symposium, Olsztyn, Poland
6. VarSITI Summarizing Workshop

Upcoming Meetings

Announcement
1. SCOSTEP’s 15th Quadrennial Solar-Terrestrial Physics Symposium (STP-15), Alibag, India February 21-25, 2022
2. Predictability of the Variable Solar-Terrestrial Coupling (PRESTO)
3. 2020 SCOSTEP Distinguished Scientist and Service Awards


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5. Postdoctoral Position at Imperial College London in Magnetospheric Physics
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From: Jonathan Eastwood (jonathan.eastwood at imperial.ac.uk)

Post-doctoral Research Assistant/Associate in Magnetospheric Physics at Imperial College London, Closing date 7-January-2020.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/description/NAT00621/research-associate-space-physics

Applications are invited for a Post-doctoral Research Assistant/Associate position in magnetospheric physics within the Space and Atmospheric Physics Group of the Department of Physics at Imperial College London. The overarching aim of this work is to better understand the behaviour of the solar wind - magnetosphere interaction during space weather events. More specifically, the work will focus on the magnetospheric and ionospheric conditions associated with strong geomagnetically induced currents on the surface of the Earth, with the goal of understanding the physical mechanisms responsible for their production. The work will make use of Imperial’s global magnetospheric simulations; the post-holder will be guided to perform numerical experiments ascertaining the effect of the solar wind and internal field changes on the intensity and occurrence of geomagnetically induced currents. The post-holder will further compare the output of the simulations with spacecraft and ground-based observations, to verify the output. The work will be performed in the context of a UKRI/NERC-funded consortium led by the British Geological Survey (SWIGS http://swigs.bgs.ac.uk/) whose goal is to radically improve our understanding of how space weather affects ground-based technology through the production of geomagnetically induced currents.

For questions or queries please contact the project PI jonathan.eastwood at imperial.ac.uk


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