[SPA] SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER, Volume XXV, Issue 6

Newsletter Editor editor at igpp.ucla.edu
Sun Jan 28 08:16:09 PST 2018


AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION
SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER
Volume XXV, Issue 6
Jan.28,2018

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Table of Contents

1. ISSI/ISSI-BJ Joint Call for Proposals 2018 for International Teams in Space and Earth Sciences

2. Spacecraft Charging Material Database

3. MEETING: Third MMS Community Workshop

4. 13th International School/Symposium for Space Simulations (ISSS-13): First Announcement

5. MEETING: The Plasmasphere and Warm Plasma Cloak Workshop

6. TESS Session: Space Weather at Ground Level

7. TESS Session: Geospace coupling processes

8. TESS Session: Separating acceleration and transport effects in SEPs

9. TESS Session: Preparing for Future Programs

10. Special Webinar on FIELDS Analysis with SPEDAS

11. 2018 NASA Planetary Science Summer Seminar Applications Due April 2, 2018

12. JOB OPENING: Postdoctoral Position (2 years) in Magnetospheric Physics at Umeå University

13. New RHESSI Science Nuggets

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Announcement Submission Website: http://goo.gl/forms/qjcm4dDr4g


1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1

ISSI/ISSI-BJ Joint Call for Proposals 2018 for International Teams in Space and Earth Sciences

From: Maurizio Falanga (mfalanga at issibern.ch)

The  International  Space  Science  Institute  (ISSI)  in  Bern, Switzerland, and ISSI-BJ in Beijing, China, invite  proposals  for  establishing  International Teams to conduct on its premises research activities in Space Sciences, based on the interdisciplinary analysis and evaluation of data from spacecraft and possible integration with ground data and theoretical models. For the purpose of this Call, Space Sciences include the Solar and Heliospheric Physics, Solar-Terrestrial Sciences, Space Plasma and Magnetospheric Physics, Planetary Sciences, Astrobiology, Cosmology, Astrophysics, Fundamental Physics in Space, and Earth Sciences using Space data.

Letter of Intent: February 20, 2018
Deadline for proposals: March 28, 2018

The Call for International Teams proposal is available on the ISSI web site:       
http://www.issibern.ch/spotlight/ISSI_ISSI-BJ_annual_call2018.pdf


2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2

Spacecraft Charging Material Database

From: Linda Parker (lparker at usra.edu)

Dr. Joseph Minow, NASA’s Technical Fellow for Space Environments, and his Technical Discipline Team of space environments and effects subject matter experts are developing a spacecraft charging material properties database.  The database will be publically accessible and serve as a shared resource for the general space environments community.  Information on the properties of materials required to conduct surface and internal charging analyses will be archived in the database.  Example parameters to be included are volume and surface conductivity, dielectric constant, secondary electron and backscatter yields, photoelectric current density, and material density.  In addition, full test reports describing the laboratory methods used to obtain the parameters will be archived when available.  The goal is to populate the database with information from the international spacecraft charging community.

Please contact Dr. Linda Parker if you are interested in the database and wish to be included on a distribution list for future announcements when the database is released and the URL for the location of the database.  

In addition, we request that individuals or teams interested in contributing to the material database please contact Dr. Linda Parker to obtain the template used to submit materials properties to the database.  Please note, the information sent must be available to the general public.  At this time, we are not accepting export controlled or proprietary information.

lparker at usra.edu or
linda.parker at nasa.gov 

Please feel free to share the email with your colleagues. 


3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3

MEETING: Third MMS Community Workshop

From: Michael Hesse (michael.hesse at uib.no)

Third MMS Community Workshop
University of Bergen
Bergen, Norway
11-14 June 2018

The third MMS community workshop will be held on 11-14 June, 2018, in Bergen, Norway. This workshop is open to the broad scientific community with interest in magnetic reconnection and other, MMS-related, science topics. Breakout sessions will be held on June 11 at the University of Bergen, and the science workshop will be on June 12-14 at the Scandic Ørnen hotel in the center of town.

MMS community workshops invite the broad space research community engaged in MMS-related science topics. The main workshop will feature scientific presentations addressing topics ranging from magnetic reconnection to the bow shock, particle acceleration, and turbulence. Mission-related breakout sessions will focus on mission operations, instrument-related issues, and special science topics. Further meeting information, including lodging information, can be found on the web site:

http://www.uib.no/en/ift/112841/mms-workshop-2018

The deadline for registration and abstract submission is 30 April 2018.

Additional information will become available soon.

Local organizing committee: 
Paul Tenfjord
Kavitha Ostgaard
Cecilia Norgren
Katarzyna Kosela-Dordevic


4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4

13th International School/Symposium for Space Simulations (ISSS-13): First Announcement

From: David Schriver, Bertrand Lembege, Yoshiharu Omura (dave at igpp.ucla.edu)

The 13th International School/Symposium for Space Simulations (ISSS-13) will be held from September 6-14, 2018 at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).  The School portion of ISSS is designed to teach space plasma simulation techniques and share state-of-the-art advances in the field.  The Symposium portion brings together the most recent observational results, theoretical advances, and numerical simulations to address outstanding problems in space physics.  ISSS-13 is open to all members of the scientific community, with participation by graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and young scientists particularly encouraged.  Travel fellowships will be available for students to attend ISSS-13, with information on the application process to be announced. 

For more information, please visit https://conferences.pa.ucla.edu/ISSS13/

We hope to see you in Los Angeles this coming September!


5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5

MEETING: The Plasmasphere and Warm Plasma Cloak Workshop

From: Joe Borovsky, Mick Denton (jborovsky at spacescience.org)

A 3-day workshop
“The Plasmasphere and the Warm Plasma Cloak”
will be held September 18-20, 2018 at Fuller Lodge in Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA.

The goals of this workshop are to:
• Assess the latest knowledge
• Assess the outstanding problems
• Develop plans to solve the outstanding problems

The workshop website is:
http://gemelli.spacescience.org/mdenton/psh_workshop/

The workshop will be a mix of presentations and audience-participation discussions.

Potential workshop discussion topics are:
• What do we know about the origin and evolution of the warm plasma cloak?
• Plasmaspheric refilling rates: are they right or wrong? If wrong, why?
• Is there radial transport of the plasmasphere by interchange?
• Is oxygen-rich cloak plasma captured into the refilling outer plasmasphere?
• Where does the long-lived plume come from: ionospheric outflow or drainage from the magnetosphere?
• Where does the plume plasma go? LLBL versus over the poles? Is it recycled?
• What outflow mechanisms act for the plasmasphere and for the cloak?
• Is the plasmasphere symmetric with respect to Earth longitude? If not, why?
• Does a filled plasmasphere precondition the magnetosphere for a storm?
• Does the outer plasmasphere corotate?

The workshop conveners are:
Joe Borovsky, Space Science Institute, Los Alamos
	jborovsky at spacescience.org
Mick Denton, Space Science Institute, Los Alamos
	mdenton at spacescience.org

The workshop will be held in the historic Fuller Lodge in downtown Los Alamos.
Hotel information can be found on the conference website.

Please contact Joe (jborovsky at spacescience.org) or Mick (mdenton at spacescience.org) to get on the attendance list and to get in the workshop schedule.


6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6

TESS Session: Space Weather at Ground Level

From: Martin Connors, Christopher T. Russell (martinc at athabascau.ca)

We would like to invite contributions to a session on " Space Weather at Ground Level " at the upcoming Triennial Earth-Sun Summit meeting (https://connect.agu.org/tess2018/home). The deadline for abstract submissions is Tuesday, 20 February 23:59 ET. 

Session Description:

The effects of Space Weather on ground systems were most dramatically demonstrated in the Hydro-Québec blackout of March 1989, whose causes are not yet completely understood. Recent high-sensitivity, high-time-resolution data from magnetic arrays show that large magnetic impulses can be associated with substorm-like activity, or with sudden impulses in the solar wind. In both cases, a large Z (vertically down) magnetic perturbation can occur, and by Faraday’s Law this component is very effective in inducing unwanted currents in large ground technological infrastructure such as electric grids and pipelines. Papers are invited focusing on observations, causes, effects, and mitigation of geomagnetically induced currents, and other space weather phenomena affecting ground technological systems.

We invite contributions that discuss how data from ground and space, and associated theoretical and modeling research, can relate space weather effects to response in ground-based systems. While the focus is anticipated to be electromagnetic effects in large conducting systems, contributions about space weather effects near the surface of the Earth are welcome.

Conveners: Martin Connors (Athabasca University), Christopher T. Russell (UCLA)


7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7

TESS Session: Geospace coupling processes

From: Toshi Nishimura, Christine Gabrielse, Ying Zou (toshi16 at bu.edu)

In the Triennial Earth-Sun Summit (TESS) meeting (20-24 May 2018, Leesburg, Virginia), we will hold a session entitled "Coupling processes in Geospace during enhanced solar wind driving". This session covers a broad range of topics in the magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere system. The session theme includes a variety of coupling processes across regions and scales as listed below.

The abstract submission deadline is 20 February 2018.
https://connect.agu.org/tess2018/home

Coupling processes in Geospace during enhanced solar wind driving

Geospace is a highly coupled system that involves inter-regional and cross-scale interaction processes. Those processes are particularly evident during disturbed conditions driven by enhanced solar wind driving and explosive release of magnetotail energy, which results in storms and substorms. To achieve system-level understanding of the terrestrial space environment, it is essential to understand plasma and energy transport by particles and fields to/from neighboring domains in the magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere system. Examples of those can be found in magnetopause processes, plasma circulation (plume, patches and outflow), particle injection/energization/precipitation, fast flow channels, wave-particle interaction, and field-aligned currents. It is critical to utilize growing capability of observations by multi-satellites and ground-based network such as the Heliophysics/Geospace System Observatory, as well as global/multi-scale simulations, for advancing community's understanding of Geospace dynamics.

This session solicits presentations on a wide range of coupling processes in the Earth's magnetosphere, ionosphere and thermosphere system; including solar wind-magnetosphere interaction, tail-inner magnetosphere interaction, magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere coupling, and global magnetospheric processes. Observations in space and ground, simulations and theory are invited. Recent progresses, future planning and discussion on open questions are welcome.

Toshi Nishimura, Christine Gabrielse, and Ying Zou


8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8

TESS Session: Separating acceleration and transport effects in SEPs

From: Mihir I Desai, Ming Zhang (mdesai at swri.edu)

We would like to invite contributions to a session on "Separating acceleration and transport effects in SEPs" at the upcoming Triennial Earth-Sun Summit meeting (https://connect.agu.org/tess2018/home). The deadline for abstract submissions is Tuesday, 20 February 23:59 ET.

Session Description: Large gradual solar energetic particles (SEPs) are produced by coronal mass ejection or CME-driven shock waves as they plough through the solar corona and the interplanetary medium. Despite being observed for more than 6 decades, the physics responsible for SEPs observed near Earth-orbit remains controversial. This is primarily because at 1 AU, the observed SEP properties, such as time-histories, spectral breaks, abundance variations, and peak intensities, are smeared due to a confluence of shock acceleration processes occurring near the Sun and in interplanetary space and particle scattering processes in interplanetary turbulence during their propagation en route to Earth. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe and ESA’s Solar Orbiter are designed to directly and repeatedly sample the near-Sun environments where interplanetary scattering and transport effects are significantly reduced, thus potentially allowing us to unravel the true properties of SEPs and understand the acceleration mechanisms at their source sites. This session seeks contributions from theorists, modelers, and observers to lay the groundwork that describes the current status of our understanding of large gradual SEP events and make specific predictions that can be tested with inner heliosphere observations over the next decade.


9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9

TESS Session: Preparing for Future Programs

From: Russ Howard, Angelos Vourlidas, Holly Gilbert, Chris St. Cyr  (russ.howard at nrl.navy.mil)

We invite contributions to a session on "Preparing for Future Programs" at the upcoming Triennial Earth-Sun Summit meeting (https://connect.agu.org/tess2018/home). The deadline for abstract submissions is Tuesday, 20 February 23:59 ET. 

Session Number: 40381
Session Description:

With the upcoming launches of several Heliophysics missions, ICON (Ionospheric Connection Explorer), GOLD (Global-Scale Observations Of The Limb And Disk), Parker Solar Probe (PSP) and Solar Orbiter (SO), the priority missions of the 2012 Decadal Survey are nearly complete.  As these missions will be joining the existing fleet of the Heliophysics System Observatory (HSO), it is a good time to start considering   mission concepts that could be considered by the next Decadal Survey.  This session invites contributions addressing current or potential gaps or enhancements in the HSO, including measurements (missions), theory, and data analysis programs.

Conveners: Russ Howard (Naval Research Laboratory), Angelos Vourlidas (Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory), Holly Gilbert, Christ St. Cyr (NASA GSFC)


10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10

Special Webinar on FIELDS Analysis with SPEDAS

From: Eric Grimes, Jim Lewis, Vassilis Angelopoulos and the SPEDAS team (egrimes at igpp.ucla.edu)

Dear Space Physics community

The Space Physics Environment Data Analysis Software (SPEDAS) development team would like to invite you to participate in a Webex presentation we'll be holding on February 14, 2018.

On Wednesday, February 14, 2018 at 10:00am Pacific, we'll be hosting a session focusing on using SPEDAS to analyze MMS FIELDS data. For more information on the MMS plug-in in SPEDAS, please see: 
http://spedas.org/wiki/index.php?title=MMS

If there are any particular questions or topics of general interest that you'd like to see covered, please send your suggestions to Eric Grimes, egrimes at igpp.ucla.edu, and we'll try to work them in.

See below for the agenda and Webex connection info.

Eric Grimes, Jim Lewis, Vassilis Angelopoulos and the SPEDAS team

Special Webinar on FIELDS Analysis with SPEDAS
Time: February 14, 10:00am-12:00pm Pacific
URL: https://uclaigpp.webex.com/uclaigpp
Meeting name = Special Webinar on FIELDS Analysis with SPEDAS
Password = mms-FIELDS-data5
Phone to use: 510-643-3817 
Conference ID/pass = none; first person hears the ring, second starts the telecon

Tentative agenda:

- Introduction to load routines, keywords (FGM, SCM, EDP, EDI)
- Coordinate transformations (cotrans / qcotrans)
- Minimum variance analysis
- Curlometer calculations
- Wave polarization calculations
- Dynamic power spectra
- Poynting flux
- GUI examples (if time permits)


11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11

2018 NASA Planetary Science Summer Seminar Applications Due April 2, 2018

From: Leslie Lowes (Leslie.L.Lowes at jpl.nasa.gov)

2018 NASA Planetary Science Summer Seminar Applications Open

NASA is accepting applications - from science and engineering post-docs, recent PhDs, doctoral students, engineering students within 6-9 months of completion of their master's degree but not planning to pursue a PhD degree, and junior faculty - for its 30th Annual Planetary Science Summer Seminar, which will be held August 6-10, 2018 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

During the program and pre-session webinars, student teams will carry out the equivalent of an early mission concept study, prepare a proposal authorization  presentation, present it to a review board, and receive feedback. By the end of the session, students will have a clearer understanding of the life cycle of a space mission; relationships between mission design, cost, and schedule; and the tradeoffs necessary to stay within cost and schedule while preserving the quality of science.

Applications are due April 2, 2018.  Partial financial support is available for a limited number of individuals. Further information is available at http://psss.jpl.nasa.gov


12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12-12

JOB OPENING: Postdoctoral Position (2 years) in Magnetospheric Physics at Umeå University

From: Maria Hamrin (Maria.Hamrin at space.umu.se)

High speed bursty bulk flows (BBFs) are known to commonly penetrate Earth’s magnetotail. However, recent observations from spacecraft missions and numerical models indicate that the tail flows can be even more complicated, hosting both vortex flows and meanderings. In the project we will determine how common such vortex-like flows are, quantify them, and investigate the effects on the mass, momentum, and energy transport in the coupled magnetosphere-ionosphere system. The major work tasks of the postdoc are to investigate the magnetotail flows by analyzing data from several single- and multi-spacecraft missions as well as from ground-based observatories, and compare with results from large scale numerical simulations.

This is a full-time (100%) position for two years. Starting date as soon as possible or according to agreement. The project is financed by the Swedish National Space Board and it will be conducted in close collaboration with scientists from the University of Colorado, the Finnish Meteorological Institute, and Shandong University, Weihai.

The full advertisement can be found at https://www.umu.se/en/work-with-us/open-positions/postdoctoral-position-2-years-in-magnetospheric-physics_189900/

For further information, contact Maria Hamrin, maria.hamrin at space.umu.se.


13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13-13

New RHESSI Science Nuggets

From: Hugh Hudson (hhudson at ssl.berkeley.edu)

No. 313, “Tecumseh's Eclipse and Astrophysics,” by Hugh Hudson: The solar corona was first recognized as actually being solar, and given that name by Jose Joaquin de Ferrer y Cafranga, in an historically interesting eclipse of 1806 (December 25, 2017).

No. 314, "A Curious Sunspot Group in 2018," by Hugh Hudson: The first new sunspot group of 2018 emerged at the wrong latitude, or else with the wrong polarity (January 14, 2018).

No. 315, "Parametrized Flare Models with Chromospheric Compressions," by Adam Kowalski and Joel Allred: A new approach to modeling the lower solar atmosphere during flaring (January 17, 2018).

See 
http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/wiki/index.php/RHESSI_Science_Nuggets

listing the current series, 2008-present, and

http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/nuggets/ 

for the original series, 2005-2008.

We publish these at roughly two-week intervals and welcome contributions,
which should be related, at least loosely, to RHESSI science.


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SPA Newsletter Editorial Team: Peter Chi (Editor), Guan Le (Co-Editor), Sharon Uy, Marjorie Sowmendran, Todd King, and Kevin Addison

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