IHY-Latin America Home Page

First Latin-American Planning Meeting
8-9 December 2005

Participants to this meeting were the Regional Coordinators (Drs. Cristina H. Mandrini and Jean-Pierre Raulin) and the National Coordinators from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Peru:

Argentina: Dr. Cristina H. Mandrini (Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio)
Brazil: Dr. Inez Staciarini Batista (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espacias)
Mexico: Dr. Rogelio Caballero (Instituto de Geofísica de la Universidad Autónoma de Méxic
Peru: Dr. Walter Guevara Day (Comisión Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo Aeroespacial).

The first meeting day was devoted to presentations by the National Coordinators, who summarized the activities in their countries related to the IHY. These presentations also included a description of the instrumental facilities in each interested country.

Dr. Jean-Pierre Raulin summarized the proposals for the development of small instrument networks within the United Nations Basic Space Science Initiatives (UNBSSI) from United Nations. These proposals were presented during the meeting at Abu-Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, December 20-23, 2005. The Latin American proposal for the development of a 7 Very Low Frequency (VLF) receptors, leaded by Dr. Raulin, was one of them. The objective of this network is to track solar activity via ionospheric measurements and to study the spatial structure of the Magnetic South Atlantic Anomaly. This proposal will receive the formal support from IHY and UNBSSI. The possibility of presenting new regional proposals was also discussed, e.g. the development of a network of magnetometers.

Dr. E. Correia described the planning and activities in the frame of the International Polar Year 2007-2008 (IPY 2007-2008) and their relation to the IHY.

The second meeting day was devoted to the organization of IHY in Latin America. A Web page is being organized to include the relevant information. In principle, this Web page is linked to the Latin American Space Geophysics Association page and has its own identification logo (shown below). The web page address is: http://www.alage.org/ihyla.html. Dr. A. Dal Lago is in charge of organizing and maintaining this page. Other aspects were discussed, such as the inclusion of instrumental facilities in the region in the local and in the main IHY Web page. National Coordinators will promote the participation of researchers and their registration in the IHY page, and will provide scientists in the region with information so that new proposals to UNBSSI can be coordinated.

Second Latin-American Planning Meeting
8 March 2006

Participants to this meeting were the Regional Coordinators (Drs. Cristina H. Mandrini and Jean-Pierre Raulin), the new National Coordinator from Brazil Dr. Alisson, Dal Lago, Dr. Inez Staciarini Batista (Brazil), Dr. Alejandro Lara (Mexico) and the European Regional Coordinator (Dr. Carine Briand).

The aim of this meeting was to discuss the state of IHY2007 activities in the different countries and to give a final format to the regional web page. Dr. Alejandro Lara informed that a scientific conference is being organized in Mexico. The event is going to be in Puerto Vallarta (west coast), from November 4 to 8, 2006, at the hotel Fiesta Americana. The title of the conference is: "Physics of Solar Wind and Magnetosphere Coupling". The National Coordinators from Mexico (Drs. R. Caballero and J.A. González Esparza are planning to include a session on the IHY2007 during this meeting. The corresponding web page is not yet available.

Latin-American outreach activities within the frame of the
International Heliophysical Year 2007

The South America Very Low Frequency NETwork (SAVNET) is an array of VLF receivers to be deployed in 2006 in the LA region, two of the seven receivers will be located in Peru. They will be operational during 2007. The main scientific objectives of this network are to monitor short and long-term trends in solar activity, as well as to study the influence on space weather of the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly (SAMA). To accomplish the objective discussed above, we are planning a six-day training course including Solar-Terrestrial relationship aspects, such as: (i) The Sun and its activity cycle; (ii) The Sun-Earth connection; (iii) Impacts of space weather dynamics on the Earth atmosphere and technological systems; (iv) The Earth ionosphere as a huge sensor of solar signals. Dr. Jean-Pierre Raulin will be in charge of the courses that will be held from 17 to 22 April, 2006. Lessons will be at the level of under-graduate and graduate students. In the future, and after examining the results of such an experience, these activities could be formalized involving several academic institutions in Peru and probably in other countries of the LA region.