[STSP] IHY October 2006 Newsletter

[Iver Cairns]

Dear All,

here's the IHY newsletter for October. Cheers,

Iver.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 13:48:15 -0600 (MDT)
From: K.S. Balasubramaniam <bala at nso.edu>
To: nso_ihy_newsgroup at nso.edu
Subject: IHY October 2006 Newsletter



IHY Newsletter,  October  2006

K. S. Balasubramaniam,
Editor
bala at nso.edu

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Headlines
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*  US NSF/ATM Solar Facilities Assessment Gets Started

*  IHY Japan

*  Impressive strides at  IHY Nigeria

*  4th Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) Meeting,
    Bangkok, Thailand, 30 July - 3 August 2007.

*  IHY Ireland Launches Website

*  COST296 Community Joins IHY initiative

*  IHY School and Workshop in Buenos Aires, Argentina

*  Update on the IHY Schools Program

*  SUN-EARTH ConnectioN Virtual Conference Series, SESSION 1
------------------------

*  US NSF/ATM Solar Facilities Assessment Gets Started

The National Science Foundation Atmospheric Division (ATM), in
collaboration with the National Center for Atmospheric Research Earth
Observing Laboratory (NCAR/EOL), is performing an inventory and
assessment of all US facilities that are relevant to NSF/ATM sponsored
researchers. This includes all solar assets: "facility-class" , space
and ground-based, and occasionally-run experimental public and private
facilities. The result of this effort will be a public document
available to all researchers in solar and atmospheric physics. This
document will assist the NSF/ATM's strategic planning process as it
anticipates the future needs of these research communities.  (see
http://www.eol.ucar.edu/dir_off/FacAssess/)

The NSF/ATM and NCAR/EOL have established a solar measurements
subcommittee (SMS) consisting of Jeff Kuhn, Hector Socas-Navarro
(co-Chairs), K.S.  Balasubramaniam, Doug Biesecker, Frank Hill, Terry
Kucera, Bill Livingston, and Dave Turner to help achieve these goals.
The SMS is  charged with compiling such an inventory and formulating a
summary report. This inventory and report is expected to be completed
by June 30, 2007. The SMS seeks input  from the solar (and relevant
atmospheric) physics communities.  A web-based survey aimed at
assessing solar facilities and solar facility users will be announced
soon. The SMS requests that researchers who have used solar facilities
or data, or who have implemented instrumental and/or data archival
capabilities, respond to  the soon-to-be-available electronic
questionnaire by January 15, 2007. A draft report is expected to be
available in April 2007 and a community workshop to review the report
will follow.

Questions, comments or concerns should be sent to the committee
co-chairs (kuhn at ifa.hawaii.edu or Navarro at ucar.edu)

------------------------

* IHY Japan  and MAGDAS

The National IHY Coordinator for Japan is Professor K. Yumoto, Space
Environment Research Center (SERC) at Kyushu University in Fukuoka,
Japan.  This research center is leading Japan's most major contribution
to IHY, namely the global deployment of MAGDAS (short for MAGnetic Data
Acquistion System).  When fully deployed, the network will consist of
50 state-of-the-art magnetometers providing geomagnetic data in
realtime for the benefit of the international scientific community.
All magnetometers were built to the same specification, providing a
high degree of consistency in measurement for global observation.  More
information about SERC and MAGDAS can be found at
www.serc.kyushu-u.ac.jp

The deployment of MAGDAS is concentrated in two bands:  (1) North and
south of Japan along the 210 meridian, and (2) along the geomagnetic
equator.  In preparation for IHY next year, SERC has made a big effort
to get several MAGDAS units installed on some of the equatorial points
this summer.  SERC is exceedingly pleased to announce today that the
SERC team of Prof. Yumoto, Dr Kakinami, and George Maeda successfully
installed the instrument in the following three African nations:

1.  Ethiopia
Location:  campus of Addis Ababa University
Contact person:  Dr Baylie Damtie
(IHY National Coordinator in Ethiopia)
2.  Nigeria
Location:  campus of Ilorin University
First contact person: Dr Rabiu
(IHY National Coordinator in Nigeria)
Second contact person: Dr Adimula
(acting head of physics department at the University of Ilorin)
3.  Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire)
Location: campus of the University of Cocody
Contact persons: Dr Vafi and Dr Obrou, both with the University of Cocody.

Data is arriving in realtime via the Internet
to the MAGDAS server at SERC at the time of this writing.

Dr. George Maeda - SERC (Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.)

------------------------

* IMPRESSIVE STRIDES AT  IHY NIGERIA

- NATIONAL WORKSHOP
IHY Nigeria held her 2nd Annual National Workshop The Tai Solarin
University of Education TASUED, Ijebu Ode, Ogun state, Nigeria, 19-21
July 2006.  The Workshop was co-sponsored by International Secretariat
of the IHY, TASUED, Space Science Popularisation in Nigeria (SPACESPiN)
an NGO, National Association of Physics Students, Federal University of
Technology, Akure Chapter, and the IHY Nigeria office.

The International Secretariat of the IHY provided many educational posters,
three-dimensional cards of Space Weather and SOHO, CDs of SOHO, Dynamic Sun
and IHY golden pendants. These were distributed to the participants.

The Workshop was impressively attended by a total of 75 participants,
students inclusive, in fields of relevance to programs to the IHY.
Papers presented at the Workshop included:
1.The Impact Of Space Weather On The Human Race, Communication And Economy - Prof. T. W. Yoloye,
2.Space Education:- an Overview - Prof. E. E. Balogun
3.Exposition on IHY - A. B. Rabiu & E. E. Balogun
4.Space Science, Atmospheric Physics and Development  - Prof. E. O. Oladiran and M. O. Adeniyi
5.International Cooperation in Radio communication- Nigerian case study - Dr. M. O. Ajewole.
6.Space Weather effects on Communication - Dr. V. U. Chukwuma.
7.IHY, Education & Public Outreach - A Framework By Ayodele Faiyetole
8.IHY - Collaborative projects in Nigeria- Progress report - Dr. A. B. Rabiu
9.Effect of Air Pollution on the Socio-Economic Development in Nigeria - Abatan, A.A.
10.Spin-offs From Space Exploration  - Ayodele Faiyetole
11.Estimation of Global Irradiation from Sunshine Duration at Iseyin, Nigeria. - Adepitan J.O., Falayi, E.O., Rabiu, A.B., Ayanda, J.D., and Oyebanjo, A.O.

-  MAGDAS INSTALLATED IN NIGERIA
Prof. Kiyohumi YUMOTO, of the Space Environment Research Centre of the
Kyushu University, Japan, and his team which comprised of  Mr. Joji MAEDA
and Dr. Yoshihiro KAKINAMI were in Nigeria 20 -27 August, 2006, to install
Magnetic Data Acquisition System, MAGDAS, at the University  of Ilorin, Nigeria.

- SCINDA IN CAPE VERDE AND NIGERIA, AFRICA
A workshop with a focus on SCINDA was held at Sal Island, Cape Verde,
Africa, July 10-14, 2006. Cape Verde is a country made up of seven
islands and situated of the western coast of Africa. A SCINDA facility
was installed at the National Meteorological and Geophysical Institute,
SAL, Cape Verde, with Jose Pimenta as the contact scientist.  On August
29th 2006, a SCINDA unit was deployed to Nigeria and set up on at the
Federal University of Technology, AKURE, Nigeria, being hosted by Dr.
A. Babatunde Rabiu at the. Two more SCINDA units are still being
expected in Nigeria to be hosted at Ibadan and Nsukka.

- ASTRONOMICAL TELESCOPES
The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan NAOJ. Has donated some
telescopes to the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University
of Nigeria, Nsukka,

- IHY PROJECTS UNDER NEGOTIATION
1.Atmospheric Weather Educational System for Observation and Modelling of Effects AWESOME.
2.Scintillation Network Decision Aid (SCINDA) - 2 more units
3.Remote Equatorial Nighttime Observatory for Ionospheric Regions (RENOIR).
4.Ground-based magnetometer array science for IHY.
5.African Meridian B-field Education and Research (AMBER)
6.GPS in Africa

Dr. A. Babatunde Rabiu,
National Coordinator, International Heliophysical Year IHY Nigeria.
Department of Physics, Federal University of Technology, P. O. Box 3220, Akure, Nigeria.
Email: tunderabiu at yahoo.com
------

* 4th Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) Meeting,
Bangkok, Thailand, 30 July - 3 August 2007.

The 4th Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) Meeting will be held in
Bangkok, Thailand, 30 July - 3 August 2007.  At the time of this
meeting, IHY-2007 activities are expected to be in peak. It would be
appropriate to propose a session at the AOGS to present the results of
coordinated efforts of IHY in the Asia-Pacific and other regions, to
highlight and report the scientific fruits of universal physical
processes in the Sun-Earth and the entire heliosphere systems.
Therefore, a special session on IHY at the ST Section of the AOGS
should be proposed. I call upon IHY regional coordinators
intersted in such a session to e-mail me your suggestions
to mano at wm.ncra.tifr.res.in

The information on the submission of special session proposals
can be found at the AOGS web site:
http://www.asiaoceania.org/aogs2007/sessioninstructions.htm

Thanking you in advance and with best wishes

P.K. Manoharan
Secretary ST (Sun and Heliosphere), AOGS-2007
Chairman, National Advisory Committee for IHY Program in India

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* IHY Ireland Launches Website

You are welcome to visit the IHY Ireland webpages at
http://www.ihy2007.ie

IHY Ireland will officially launch its activities to
coincide with the winter solstice Sun illuminating the passage
of the 5,000 year old Newgrange monument
(http://www.mythicalireland.com/ancientsites/newgrange/).

For further details contact:

Peter Gallagher, PhD
www.SolarMonitor.org
School of Physics
Trinity College Dublin
Dublin 2
Ireland
email: peter.gallagher at tcd.ie

------------------

*  COST296 Action launches a program of initiatives for IHY

Since the 90's the COST Actions relating to ionospheric physics are
particularly useful in creating a critical mass of researchers to
increase the knowledge of the ionosphere and its effects on navigation
and communication systems. Nowadays COST296 Action (2005-2009)
(www.COST296.rl.ac.uk) provides a unique European forum for the
progression of such matters.  In the IHY frame the idea is to maintain
the necessary European  cooperation for a multi instrument monitoring
of the middle-upper atmosphere and improving scientific joint efforts
to investigate on the interconnection between low, mid and high
latitude ionosphere. In this context COST296 has launched a set of
scientific and educational/outreach initiatives described in the
COST296/IHY web pages and summarized in a dedicated CIP, as follows:

The development and maintenance of COST296/IHY web site to exchange
general information, expertise, know-how, links to the data archive and
databases produced by this Action among the IHY community.
Coordination of multi-instruments observation campaigns in synergy with
the I*Y community to create a data archive useful to form a baseline
collection against which later forecasting efforts may be compared.
Stimulate joint investigations on interconnection between low, middle
and high latitude ionosphere and plasmasphere during some big storm
events.  Contribute to outreach initiatives on the base of the
experience achieved in the frame of national events and exhibitions
supported by some Institutions participating in COST296/IHY.  Organize
public conferences to be hosted in the COST296/IHY participating
Institutes and a competition open to the schools to prepare a calendar
for 2007-2008 on the base of the best drawings selected by a jury. The
calendar would be distributed to the participating schools with a prize
to the winners.  Under the indications given by Kirsti Kauristie and
Ian McCrea (CIP coordinators, Ionized Atmospheres) and Richard Stamper
(IHY Campaign Coordination Co-Chair), the COST296/IHY CIP is now part
of the research topic "Radio wave propagation in the ionosphere -
observations and models" inside the ICESTAR/IHY core project for IPY.

We are happy to announce that the COST296 community joins the IHY
initiatives through the creation of the web pages on
http://ionos.ingv.it/IHY/ihy_index.html (reachable also from the
COST296 site) and through the submission of a CIP.

Dr. Lucilla Alfonsi, Giorgiana De Franceschi,  and
Silvia Pau (contact for the COST296/IHY initiatives)
Upper Atmosphere Physics
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia(INGV)
Via di Vigna Murata, 605
00143 Rome (Italy)
---------------


*  IHY School and Workshop in Buenos Aires, Argentina

First meeting of the Network of Argentine Researchers on Heliospheric
Sciences held at Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio -IAFE-
(Buenos Aires, Argentina), September 25-29, 2006

The First Meeting of RIARCHE (Spanish acronym which stands for Network
of Argentine Researchers on Heliospheric Sciences) was held at the
Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio (IAFE), in Buenos Aires,
Argentina.  The meeting was sponsored by the Argentinian Secretary for
Science and Technology (SECyT), the National Commission on Space
Affairs (CONAE) and IAFE. Latin American researchers, PhD students and
post-doc students working on Heliospheric Sciences either abroad or in
the country attended this meeting.

Two main activities took place throughout the meeting: (1) specific
presentations to exchange recent results among all the participants,
(2) in-depth lectures from senior scientists to the growing number of
students working on this field in the region. The lectures were on the
following subjects: Solar Radio Astrophysics (by Carlos Gimenez de
Castro, from Univ. Presbiteriana Mackenzie, Brazil), Physical Processes
in the Interplanetary Medium (by Daniel Berdichevsky, at GSFC, USA),
and Planetary Magnetospheres (by Mario Acuna, GSFC, USA and Cesar
Bertucci, Imperial College, UK).

About forty participants from different countries attended this
activity at IAFE
(http://www.iafe.uba.ar), which is an institution with a longstanding
tradition in
Solar and Heliospheric Sciences, with well established research groups
working on these fields. For more info, please take a look at the
RIARCHE web page:
http://www.riarche.iafe.uba.ar.


Dr. Cristina Mandrini
IHY ARGENTIA
cristina.mandrini at gmail.com

-----------------------

*   Update on the IHY Schools Program

To address the IHY's focus on providing unique opportunities for the global
community to increase the visibility and accessibility of heliophysics outreach
programs, the IHY has formed the IHY Schools Program to develop a series of
schools in 2007 and 2008 with the purpose of educating students about Universal
Processes and providing them with an opportunity to view their own research
interests in a new context. The IHY Schools Program is organized and operated by
the IHY Schools Committee (ISC), which currently consists of the following
members: David Webb (ISC Coordinator), Ilia Roussev, Nat Gopalswamy (IHY European
School Coordinator and IHY International Coordinator), Cristina Rabello-Soares
(IHY EPO coordinator), Don Hassler (IHY North American School Coordinator),
Cristina Mandrini ((IHY Latin American School Coordinator), Nancy Crooker and
Barbara Thompson (IHY Director of Operations).

The ISC will initially invite and support students that are or will be associated
with the two key elements of the IHY science program, the Coordinated
Investigation Programs (CIPs) and the United Nations Basic Space Science
Initiative (UNBSSI) IHY instrument program. Presently, four IHY schools are being
planned for 2007-08. One will be in Boulder, CO to serve North America and is
organized by Don Hassler and David Webb. The second will be held at the ICTP in
Trieste, Italy for the European/African region and is led by Nat Gopalswamy. The
third, for Latin America, may be held in Brazil and is being organized by
Cristina Mandrini and Jean-Pierre Raulin. The last will be in the Asian Pacific
region and the organizer and structure will be determined at the Asia-Pacific
Regional Planning Meeting in Beijing in October 2006, hosted by IHY Asia-Pacific
Regional Coordinator Chi Wang. Additional schools under the IHY umbrella are
being considered in individual countries and the ISC will support these where
possible.

The ISC is developing a general curriculum that will be used as a model for all
the IHY schools. It will include seminars and hands-on sessions with databases
acquired particularly through the CIP and UNBSSI programs, and collaborative
efforts with other affiliated groups. The overall scope of the schools will be
heliophysics, including Universal Processes, Sun-Earth interactions as well as
those at other planets, and the outer heliosphere. The lectures and data labs
will cover the cross-disciplinary studies of Universal Processes, responses to
external drivers including lectures in the 5 main IHY science topic areas,
achieving international scientific cooperation, preserving the history and legacy
of the IGY on its 50th Anniversary, public outreach, and global studies with an
emphasis on science in developing countries.

Other lectures may include topics by science disciplines, such as Solar Physics,
Heliosphere and Cosmic Rays, Planetary Magnetospheres, Planetary Ionospheres,
Thermospheres and Mesospheres, and Climate Studies, Heliobiology,
Theory/modeling, new and future Space Instruments/Missions such as STEREO,
Solar-B, SDO, and Ibex, and Solar Energetic Particles, CMEs and Space Weather,
and Irradiance. The structure of the schools will consist of about 10 full day?s
class time, with brief morning and afternoon breaks and longer day and evening
breaks for socializing and off time. There will be about 4 sessions per day with
each session ~1.5 hr. The amount of time devoted to the data analysis labs will
depend on the number of students and the amount of pertinent, analyzable data
that will be available by the time of the school.

Additionally, each student will be given individual attention and encouraged to
focus on their own individual research area. A mentoring system will be used, so
that at several times throughout the school, they will be paired with 1-2
workshop coordinators/lecturers who will assist them in identifying the
heliophysical regimes and research topics that will allow them to view their own
research in a broader heliophysical context. The ISC is currently developing the
schools? curriculum, and anyone with ideas or comments on the schools or the
curriculum is encouraged to contact Dave Webb by email at
david.webb at hanscom.af.mil.


------------------------

*  SUN-EARTH ConnectioN Virtual Conference Series, SESSION 1

GRAND CHALLENGE SCIENCE FOCUS:  Explore the state of the sun-Earth
system during extreme space weather. "Return to the Auroral Oval for
the 50th Anniversary of the International Geophysical Year".

SPONSORS: CAWSES, IHY, eGY, ICESTAR, NASA/LWS, NSF, and the SEE
organizers

WHAT'S NEW:  The IMAGE spacecraft observed the development of a large-
scale auroral spiral on the dawnside of the auroral oval and a
long-duration finger-like structure on the duskside in the southern
hemisphere during intense substorms in the main phase of severe
magnetic storms on 15 May and 24 August 2005. The unusual features,
reported here, are absent during substorms occurring at other phases of
the storms, which do not show any dramatic activity in the dawn to noon
sector.   To our knowledge, neither of these structures has been
previously reported as a feature of auroral substorms. Similar
structures have now been found on the dawnside during substorms in the
main phases of 4 other superstorms in 2003-2004 (29-30 Oct 2003, 20 Nov
2003, 07-08 Nov 2004 and 09-10 Nov 2004)

IMPLICATIONS:  Since large-scale auroral emissions generally mirror the
structure and movement of source regions in geospace, these unusual
auroral structures may imply new features during extreme space weather
conditions in: (1) the magnetospheric configuration, (2) solar wind-
magnetosphere coupling, (3) storm-substorm coupling, and/or (4)
stormtime energy dissipation mechanisms.  They raise question about the
aspects of the solar sources and heliospheric propagation capable of
driving such extreme conditions, in particular aspects introduced by
the interaction between active regions and coronal holes.  They also
motivate a search for associated features throughout geospace and in
the ionosphere- atmosphere from pole to equator.  Join us in a
worldwide effort to combine observations and identify sun-to-Earth
science focus areas.

SCHEDULE:
Nov 13-17, 2006, PART 1:  International Data Exchange and Sun-to-Earth
Science Issues.
JOINT SESSIONS WITH:  CAWSES International Workshop on Space Weather
Modeling (CSWM), Yokohama, Japan
Mid 2007, PART 2: Theory, Modeling and Simulations of Extreme Space
Weather

WORKSHOP URL: http://workshops.jhuapl.edu/s1/index.html. Contains basic
information on the events for the conference along with an incomplete
list of associated Sun-Earth system science questions.  Describes the
features of the online conference.  Please check back frequently for
updates.  REGISTRATION IS OPEN NOW

4 WAYS TO PARTICIPATE:  (1) join a worldwide effort to construct the
most complete picture possible of the sun-to-Earth system by submitting
an online presentations of satellite or ground-based observations
during the focus events, (2) contribute global data products, data
sets, virtual observatory links, etc. for the information commons, (3)
view presentations; contribute to online discussions about key
sun-to-earth issues, and about possible modeling efforts; establish
collaborations for follow-on theoretical and modeling studies; enhance
graduate student access to international and interdisciplinary
collaborations (4) help to test and improve features of online
conference software to develop a new option for scientific
communication as part of the International Heliophysical Year.

Nat Gopalswamy, Barbara Thompson and Joe Davilla
Solar System Exploration, Code 695
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
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