[SPA] SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER, Volume XXV, Issue 31

[Newsletter Editor]

AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION
SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER
Volume XXV, Issue 31
May.23,2018

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Table of Contents

1. MEETING: The C. Robert Clauer Research Symposium, Arlington, Virginia, May 31 – June 1, 2018

2. MEETING: 5th Cluster-THEMIS Workshop, September 24-28, 2018 -- Second Announcement

3. MEETING: International Workshop on "Particle Acceleration and Transport: From the Sun to Extragalactic Sources," 12-16 November 2018, Università Della Calabria, Rende, Italy -- Second Announcement

4. MEETING: 18th Annual International Astrophysics Conference, February 18-22, 2019, Pasadena, California, USA

5. Python Developer Meeting at TESS (May 23, 6pm)

6. SESSION: A New GEM Focus Group Session Announcement: “Interhemispheric Approaches to Understand M-I Coupling (IHMIC)”

7. SESSION: SHINE Workshop, Session 22 – Advancing Solar Activity Forecasts Through Observations, Data Assimilation and Machine Learning

8. JOB OPENING: Extended Deadline for Faculty Position in Experimental Space Plasma Physics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm

9. Announcing CESRA Nuggets in May 2018

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


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MEETING: The C. Robert Clauer Research Symposium, Arlington, Virginia, May 31 – June 1, 2018

From: Joseph Baker (jo.baker at vt.edu)

The Virginia Tech Center for Space Science and Engineering Research (Space at VT) will host a 2-day research symposium to celebrate the career of Professor C. Robert Clauer. The program will include technical presentations covering the broad range of geospace system science topics Professor Clauer investigated during his career using data from space-based auroral imagers, ionospheric radars, and autonomous magnetometer arrays. Example science topics include: morphology of the ring current, solar wind – magnetosphere – ionosphere coupling, modes of magnetospheric activity, polar potential saturation, and interhemispheric conjugacy. A celebratory banquet will be held on the evening of Thursday May 31st at which participants can share personal reminiscences.

More information can be found at:

https://register.cpe.vt.edu/search/publicCourseSearchDetails.do?method=load&courseId=1185049

The final deadline for registration and abstract submission is May 24th. 


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MEETING: 5th Cluster-THEMIS Workshop, September 24-28, 2018 -- Second Announcement

From: Philippe Escoubet, Vassilis Angelopoulos and David Sibeck (philippe.escoubet at esa.int)

The 5th Cluster-THEMIS workshop will take place on 24-28 September 2018 in Chania, Crete (Greece)

This workshop follows a tradition of Cluster and THEMIS workshops based on highly successful previous meetings in New Hampshire in 2008, Corfu, Greece in 2010, Boulder, USA in 2012 and Palm Spring, USA in 2016. Science from other space missions are most welcome (MMS, Van Allen Probe, Arase and Geotail) as well as theory and simulations and ground-based observatories.

The following sessions will be organised:

1. Large Scale Dynamics within the magnetosphere (Storms, substorms, etc)
2. Solar wind and coupling to the magnetosphere (shock, magnetosheath, magnetopause, cusp and boundary layers) 
3. Small-Scale processes in space plasma (auroral acceleration, reconnection, etc)
4. Wave-particle interaction and particle acceleration (inner magnetosphere, etc)
5. Turbulence and plasma heating (solar wind, magnetosheath, foreshock, plasma sheet)

The workshop will take place at the Panorama hotel in Chania, Creta, Greece

Please find below the link  for the web pages.

https://caa.esac.esa.int/wksp/cluster_workshop28_main.xml

Abstract submission deadline is 15 June.

There will be no registration fees but you are encouraged to register before 31 July.

A limited number of rooms are available at the Panorama hotel (see accomodation) and the block booking is kept up to 26 May 2018. There are also plenty of hotels nearby that you can find with hotel search engines. 

People not staying in the Panorama hotel can still buy an all-inclusive package (this includes all meals and drinks) in Panorama at a rate of 30€/day (see details in the accommodation page)


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MEETING: International Workshop on "Particle Acceleration and Transport: From the Sun to Extragalactic Sources," 12-16 November 2018, Università Della Calabria, Rende, Italy -- Second Announcement

From: Silvia Perri (silvia.perri at fis.unical.it)

The University of Calabria will host the international workshop on 'Particle acceleration and transport: from the Sun to extragalactic sources' on November 12-16, 2018. Abstract submission and registration are now open at http://astroplasmas.unical.it/workshop2018/ . 

Contributing talks abstract submission: September 16th, 2018. 

Main Topics: Observations of energetic particles in the solar, heliospheric, galactic and extragalactic environments; Properties of cosmic ray transport and acceleration from in-situ and remote observations; Solar flares, Crab flares, flaring phenomena in astrophysics; Shock acceleration: problems and advances; Particle acceleration in  magnetic reconnection, including the relativistic regimes; Particle acceleration in accretion flows and relativistic jets; Transport and acceleration in non-linear regimes; Magnetic turbulence in astrophysical plasmas: properties from large to small scales and effects on particle transport; Theoretical models and numerical simulations of particle transport and acceleration. 

SOC: Silvia Perri (Chair, Università della Calabria, Rende, Italy); Elena Amato (co-chair, INAF, Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Italy); Gianfranco Brunetti (IRA-INAF, Bologna, Italy); Andrei Bykov (Ioffe Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia); Silvia Dalla (University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK); Horst Fichtner (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany); Natasha Jeffrey (University of Glasgow, UK); William H. Matthaeus (University of Delaware, USA); Reinout J. van Weeren (Leiden University, The Netherlands); Gaetano Zimbardo (Università della Calabria, Rende, Italy)

For further info visit http://astroplasmas.unical.it/workshop2018/


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MEETING: 18th Annual International Astrophysics Conference, February 18-22, 2019, Pasadena, California, USA

From: Gary P Zank (garyp.zank at gmail.com)

FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT: The 18th Annual International Astrophysics Conference will be held in Pasadena, California at the Sheraton Pasadena February 18 – 22, 2019. (Welcome Reception and Evening Registration begins Sunday, February 17).

The meeting will follow the same format as before with 25-minute presentations punctuated by selected 40-minute invited talks that will explore various themes in greater detail. The conference theme for the 18th AIAC is

"The Physics of Energetic Particles: Universal Processes from the Solar Corona to the Very Local Interstellar Medium and the Physics they Enable"

More conference details and  website will be available soon. For now, mark your calendars and contact us with your interest in attending. 

E-mail inquiries about the meeting should be directed to Gary Zank at garyp.zank at gmail.com or icnsmeetings at gmail.com.


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Python Developer Meeting at TESS (May 23, 6pm)

From: Alexandria DeWolfe (alex.dewolfe at lasp.colorado.edu)

NASA Heliophysics is starting a series of discussions around Python software development for heliophysics, space physics, and planetary science, in order to coordinate our efforts, identify potential collaborations, establish software standards and conventions, ensure interoperability, and so on. We’ll be holding an in-person “Birds-of-a-Feather” meeting at the TESS conference on Wednesday evening (5/23, 6-8 pm in the Thurber Room at the Lansdowne), and following that up with a series of telecons and more in-person discussions at future meetings including CEDAR, COSPAR, and AGU. If you’d like to be involved in this effort, contact Aaron Roberts (aaron.roberts at nasa.gov) or Alex DeWolfe (alex.dewolfe at lasp.colorado.edu) with any questions or comments.


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SESSION: A New GEM Focus Group Session Announcement: “Interhemispheric Approaches to Understand M-I Coupling (IHMIC)”

From: Hyomin Kim, Robert Lysak, Tomoko Matsuo (hmkim at njit.edu)

We invite you to participate in our new GEM focus group session, “Interhemispheric Approaches to Understand M-I Coupling (IHMIC)”. The main goal of this focus group proposal is to understand the interhemispheric symmetry/asymmetry in geomagnetic fields and its effects on M-I coupling. Observational and modeling studies have shown the interhemispheric differences which are manifested in various signatures, e.g., large-scale current systems, auroral forms, waves, ion upflow, outflow, particle precipitation, high-latitude convection and thermospheric winds.  

The focus group addresses questions as to how to incorporate interhemispheric differences and their effects on M-I coupling in observations and modeling/simulations. The overarching science questions that this focus group will be addressing are:
1) In what aspect does the asymmetry in geomagnetic fields play a role in M-I coupling?
2) How are the interhemispheric differences related to solar wind and geomagnetic activities?
3) What are interhemispheric differences in storm and substorm signatures, wave activity and particle precipitation? What controls these differences?
4) How do interhemispheric differences in ionospheric conductivity affect solar wind coupling to the magnetosphere, ionosphere and thermosphere? 
5) What are effects of the neutral wind dynamo in the application of Ohm's law to ionosphere-magnetosphere coupling?  Does the neutral wind dynamo contribute to the interhemispheric asymmetry in M-I coupling? 

There will be two sessions on Friday (June 22). Please note that the afternoon session is a joint session with the focus group “3D Ionospheric Electrodynamics and its impact on MIT coupling (IEMIT)”. 

Friday 10:30-12:00 IHMIC FG session
Friday 1:30-3:00 IEMIT-IHMIC Joint FG Session

This year, we are encouraging more discussion and discouraging AGU-style presentations, limiting each talk to 3-4 slides focused on results and outstanding questions. If you are interested in presenting interhemispheric studies, please use this signup form: https://goo.gl/forms/YFCcZi1Qxi74fRi93

Please also note that there will be GEM-CEDAR joint sessions on Saturday (June 23). The second session from 10:30 to 12:00 will cover “Interhemispheric Processes/Symmetries/Asymmetries”. 


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SESSION: SHINE Workshop, Session 22 – Advancing Solar Activity Forecasts Through Observations, Data Assimilation and Machine Learning

From: Irina Kitiashvili and Lisa Upton (irina.n.kitiashvili at nasa.gov)

Speakers: Thomas Berger (Univ. of Colorado) and Petrus Martens (Georgia State Univ.)

Understanding of solar variability on different scales is a key to building reliable forecasts for short-term events (such as emergence of active regions, flares and CMEs), as well as for long-term variations on the scale of solar cycles. New observational data from space missions and ground-based observatories provide us with detailed information about the solar dynamics and magnetism from the interior to the heliosphere. Because of limited coverage and uncertainties of both, observational data and models, it is challenging to combine the data with models and make reliable forecasts of solar activity.

New data enhancement capabilities, advanced numerical simulations, mathematical data assimilation and machine learning techniques have opened new perspectives for better understanding the basic mechanisms of solar activity, extracting additional information about processes hidden from direct observations, and developing physics-based models for activity forecast. In particular, machine leaning methods allow us to efficiently analyze large amount of data, classify multiscale physical and morphological properties, and identify most important characteristics of the onset and strength of solar eruptions. The data assimilation methods allow us to take into account uncertainties in both observational data and models, and estimate the current and future states of underlying physical processes (such as the solar dynamo and magnetic flux rope eruption). Thus, the synergy of observational data with data assimilation and machine learning techniques can potentially lead to substantial improvement of short and long term operational forecasts of the solar activity.

The session will bring expertise of observers, theoreticians and modelers and provide a unique platform to discuss the current status, needs and challenges for understanding and forecasting of solar activity on different temporal and spatial scales.

Discussion topics:
What are the most critical observational data for characterization of multiscale properties of solar activity?
What are the observational and theoretical challenges for understanding and predicting the solar activity?
How can the data assimilation and machine learning approaches improve forecasting of solar activity on short and long time-scales?

Workshop Dates: 30 July- 3 August, 2018
Abstract Submission Deadline: 22 June, 2018


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JOB OPENING: Extended Deadline for Faculty Position in Experimental Space Plasma Physics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm

From: Göran Marklund (goranmar at kth.se)

Please be informed that the application deadline for the faculty position in Experimental Space Plasma Physics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm has been extended by 2 weeks. The new deadline is 29 May 2018.

Please visit the full announcement at https://www.kth.se/en/om/work-at-kth/lediga-jobb/what:job/jobID:179515/ .


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Announcing CESRA Nuggets in May 2018

From: Eduard Kontar (eduard at astro.gla.ac.uk)

LOFAR observations of Fine Fundamental and Harmonic Structures in Solar Radio Bursts by Chen et al*
http://cesra.net/?p=1848

Modeling of Solar Atmosphere Parameters Above Sunspots Using RATAN-600 Microwave Observations
by Stupishin et al.
http://cesra.net/?p=1853

CESRA Highlights of Solar Radio Physics, aka CESRA Nuggets, are short communications written in language accessible to a non-expert in the specific area and designed to keep solar and heliophysics communities informed and up-to-date about current research. The highlights can be followed, discussed, commented and shared via http://www.facebook.com/solarcesra/
http://twitter.com/CESRA_community/


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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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