IHY Newsroom - September 2006 Newsletter






	IHY Newsletter - September 2006 About: Posting to, subscribing to, and unsubscribing from IHY Newsletters IHY Newsletter September 2006 IHY Newsletter, September 2006 K. S. Balasubramaniam, Editor bala@nso.edu Headlines Universal processes - A science challenge for IHY2007 IHY Outreach and Education Program at the AGU Coordinated Investigation Programs ( CIPs) - Advances Public Outreach in the UK IHY Norway Introduces the Space Suitcase! Progress with e-CALLISTO IHY Romania - Upcoming Meetings European Coordination Events for IHY2007 Second European General Assembly of IHY 2006 UN/NASA Workshop on the International Heliophysical Year Notes from the IAU General Assembly From the IHY Secretariat Details Let's expand our concepts of universal processes The International Heliophysical Year will establish the concept and define the scope of heliophysics as a new interdisciplinary study area that may be transformed to a completely new discipline in years ahead. This exciting prospect of participation in the birth of a new area of science compares with the emergence of geophysics during the International Geophysical Year, 50 years ago. Given the creative power of this opportunity, it is imperative to communicate the full scope of this new area of study. Since the adopted concept is one of universal processes, their mechanisms and influence in the heliosphere, the list of examples we quote is likely to initially define the scope our new study area. The universal processes listed on our (IHY) website are: Theme 1: Evolution and Generation of Magnetic Structures and Transients Theme 2: Energy Transfer and Coupling Processes Theme 3: Flows and Circulations Theme 4: Boundaries and Interfaces Theme 5: Synoptic Studies of the 3-D Coupled Solar-Planetary-Heliospheric System It may look as if these are comprehensive in the most general sense, however we should be aware that our abbreviated discussions of these themes conveys the impression of focus on plasmas. Heliophysics should not be limited to plasmas, but needs to be explicitly developed to include processes in media dominated by electrically neutral particles. Themes 1 and 5 imply a plasma environment exclusively but themes 2, 3 and 4 can be developed in terms of neutral and ionized media. A good case in point is the effect of turbulence in defining boundaries and coupling energy and momentum across them. Turbulent processes are critically important from the planetary boundary layer to the heliopause in certain regions not much thicker than the turbulences scales that exist. The coupling of heat and mass from the ground to the atmosphere, the establishment of the turbopause in the upper mesosphere and the magnetopause at the boundary with the solar wind are each examples. Only the last one is a plasma process. Acoustic-gravity waves carry heat and momentum from areas of disturbance in the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere and thermosphere depositing them in remote locations many tens, hundreds or thousands of kilometers away. So it is that the upper atmosphere is heated and accelerated by disturbances originating in the lower atmosphere and lower latitudes receive heat and momentum from the auroral regions. Global effects originate from localized disturbances through acoustic-gravity waves. Clouds, cloud formation, precipitation and atmospheric chemistry are connected by the processing done by atmospheric aerosols. Fundamental understanding of the creation of cloud droplets, their evaporation or precipitation, and their effects on climate are current areas of cutting edge research related to the environmental effects of aerosol processing. Climate change itself has its own set of phenomena dependent on a few universal processes. For example, although the greenhouse effect is well understood as a primary process, its occurrence in nature merits close attention to predict the climate change outcome on Earth and to understand the stages of climate development at Venus, Mars and elsewhere. I mention these examples to begin a discussion on the further expansion of our presentations on universal processes and their influence in the heliosphere. The sooner we can get to grips with the task of refining our approach to studies of these processes and the results we can achieve, the faster we will gain enthusiastic adherents who will amplify our efforts and help build the new topic of heliophysics. Roger W. Smith Director, Geophysical Institute University of Alaska Fairbanks roger.smith@gi.alaska.edu IHY Outreach and Education Program at the AGU AGU Session ED16 Perspectives on Cross-Cultural Collaboration and Communication in Science Education and Public Outreach Description: The United Nations has offered to disseminate worldwide a CD-ROM of education and public outreach (EPO) resources related to the International Heliophysical Year (IHY). The task of assembling the multi-national content of this CD has raised questions about how to identify products that best communicate science to people of different cultures. This session will feature invitees and call for contributors who have experiences, lessons learned, and best practices to share in the development of exemplary cross-cultural educational products and events. While the session conveners are particularly interested in IHY- related content, projects in all AGU disciplines are encouraged to participate. To submit your abstract to Session ED 16, please go to: http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm06/ Sponsor: Education and Human Resources CoSponsor: Public Affairs and Ocean Sciences Conveners: Cherilynn A. Morrow Space Science Institute & SETI Institute 4750 Walnut Street, Suite 205 Boulder, CO, USA 80301 +1 720-974-5828 morrow@spacescience.org M. Cristina Rabello-Soares Stanford University CSSA - HEPL Annex Stanford, CA, USA 94305,BR> +1 650-724-2194 csoares@quake.stanford.edu Barbara J. Thompson NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Code 612.1 Greenbelt, MD, USA 20771 +1 301-286-3405 barbara.j.thompson@nasa.gov Coordinated Investigation Programs ( CIPs) - Advances The coordination of science activities for IHY 2007 is now gathering pace rapidly. More than 40 Coordinated Investigation Programs ( CIPs ) have already been proposed to investigate phenomena and systems from across the full range of heliophysics. The CIPs are classified as belonging to one or more Disciplines, such as Solar, Heliosphere/Cosmic Rays, Magnetospheres, and Ionized Atmospheres. To support the CIPs in each discipline and help build connections between them a number of Discipline Coordinators have been recruited -- at the time of going to press they were: Solar: Dipankar Banerjee (dipu@iiap.res.in) Sarah Gibson (sgibson@ucar.edu) Heliospheric/Cosmic Rays: Jose Valdes-Galicia (jfvaldes@geofisica.unam.mx) Magnetospheres: Kiyohumi Yumoto (yumoto@geo.kyushu-u.ac.jp) Ionized Atmospheres: Ian McCrea (I.McCrea@rl.ac.uk) Kirsti Kauristie (Kirsti.Kauristie@fmi.fi) Neutral Atmospheres: Tim Fuller-Rowell (tim.fuller-rowell@noaa.gov) For more information about CIPs, including details of those proposed already, how to propose one, and the work of the Discipline Coordinators, go to http://ihy2007.org.uk/CIPs.shtm or contact Richard Stamper (r.stamper@rl.ac.uk). Outreach in the UK Courtesy of the main funding organisation for IHY science in the UK, the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, Dr. Lucie Green (lmg@mssl.ucl.ac.uk) is now a part-time IHY Outreach Coordinator for the UK. Several activities aimed at raising public interest and awareness in IHY and heliophysics are already planned for the UK, including experiments for school children, websites, open days, competitions and debates. Lucie will be seeking to encourage more and to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts! Richard Stamper IHY Norway Introduces the Space Suitcase! In a novel approach to introducing heliophysics to high school classes, IHY Norway has developed the "Space Suitcase" or "Space Box" project encompassed in a suitcase. The suitcase will consist of the following instruments: 1. Cosmic ray detector 2. Magnetometer 3. VLF receiver 4. A simple allsky camera 5. Sunspotter ..and a laptop, with software to display data. This suitcase can be lent out to high school classes after providing some instruction on its operation. Following a month or so, of using this suitcase, the high school students (and teacher) are asked give a presentation about their research and the resultant findings. The Space Suitcase is then circulated to another school. For more information, contact Dr. Nikolai Ostgaard, Dept. of Physics and Technology, Room 417 University of Bergen, Allegt. 55 Bergen N-5007, Norway email: Nikolai.Ostgaard@ift.uib.no URL: http://www.ift.uib.no/~nikost Progress with e-CALLISTO The deployment of solar radio spectrometers of the CALLISTO type to cover a 24 hour survey of solar activity makes progress. The radio spectrometers will observe the meter wavelengths from 45 to 400 MHz. Work is well advanced in Irkutsk (Siberia), has started in Ooty (India) and there are positive responses from Mexico and Costa Rica. A. Benz, Switzerland IHY Romania - Upcoming Meetings In Romania, we have scheduled the following events: Long-Term Change The Second International Symposium on Space Climate": in the Sun, and its Effects in the Heliosphere and Planet Earth Sinaia, Romania, 13-16 September 2006 Organiser Georgeta Maris International Conference Fifty Years of Romanian Astrophysics Bucharest, 26-30 September 2006 Organiser Cristiana Dumitrache Workshop on "Flows, Boundaries, Interactions" Bucharest, 4-5 May 2007 Young Scientists International School on "Heliosphere and Galaxy" Bucharest, 3-5 May 2007 For further details, contact Dr. Cristiana Dumitrache Head of Solar Department Astronomical Institute of Romanian Academy Str. Cutitul de Argint 5 040557 Bucharest ROMANIA European Coordination Events for IHY2007 An "Open doors day" is scheduled on June 10, 2007. The goal of this day is to receive the public in the institutes/labs/observatories all over Europe to explain our research. In case of difficulties, it is suggested to plan some different activities like exhibitions in the city, "science bar" like philosophers do in Paris (discussions with the public around a coffee) etc ... Also, we will try to establish video link between some observatories in activity. The list of the laboratories that accept to participate will be available on the European web page together with a description of the actions foreseen (section OUTREACH) This operation is performed in collaboration with IPY. The proceedings of the first European General Assembly of IHY have been mailed. A few copies are still available. The first announcement of the second European General Assembly has been sent (see below). The main topic is : European Implication in the Large Infrastructures of the Future. A summary of the activities planned or under development in each European country is presented on the European web page (http://www.lesia.obspm.fr/IHY - section Contact/news). It is updated following the information we receive from the coordinators. A list of offered job positions is available. If you have some offers, please let us know. Finally, in order to easily follow the updates on the web page, just go to the "Last updates" section of the above pages, to have the list of the latest information put on these pages. C. Briand Co-chair of the European coordination carine.briand@obspm.fr Second European General Assembly of IHY "European Implication to the Large Infrastructures of the Future" Torino, Italy June 18-22, 2007 First announcement I - Scientific Context The year 2007 will mark the 50th Anniversary of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) and 50 years of space exploration. The worlds science community will come together for an international program of scientific collaboration: the International Heliophysical Year (IHY) 2007-2008. IHY extends the concept of "Geophysics" to Heliophysics to embrace not only atmospheric and solar-terrestrial physics but include studies of other planets, the outer reaches of the heliosphere, and its interaction with the interstellar medium. Among the IHY objectives: 1. Develop the basic science of heliophysics through cross-disciplinary studies of universal processes, 2. Foster international scientific cooperation in the study of heliophysical phenomena now and in the future, 3. Communicate unique IHY results to the scientific community and the general public. II- Meeting Goals This meeting aims to foster the European participation and collaboration in the development of the large infrastructures of the future for the exploration and the study of the heliosphere. Space and ground-based major instruments that are presently in their initial design phase will be presented as support for discussions and contacts between scientific teams all over Europe. It will also be a good opportunity to expose new ideas or projects. The domains concerned are: Sun, Solar wind, Solar wind-Planets relationships, Space Weather, Limits of the heliosphere. Students and young researchers are particularly encouraged to participate: the time development of such large infrastructures will make them the actors of the future. It will also be a good opportunity for teams that are not traditionally involved in instrumental development to participate from the beginning to such projects and for their students to acquire experience on that field. A specific session will be dedicated to outreach and communication activities. We can then assess the impact of the Open doors day (June 10, 2007) and present the manifestations organized by the different countries. The web page of the meeting will be opened very soon. In the meantime, information will be available on the IHY European web page: http://www.lesia.obspm.fr/IHY/ C. Briand and J.L. Bougeret, on behalf of the European Steering Committee of IHY carine.briand@obspm.fr 2006 UN/NASA Workshop on the International Heliophysical Year The Second UN/NASA workshop (November 27 - December 1, 2006) will be held at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, India. Considerable progress has been made in organizing the second UN/NASA workshop (November 27 - December 1, 2006) at the Indian Institute of astrophysics, Bangalore, India. A large number of applications have been received from developing countries. These will be processed soon and the selections will be announced by the third week of September. Those who do not need financial support can still register either on line (www.iiap.res.in/ihy) or by sending an email to ihy@iiap.res.in stating that you are interested in participating in the UN/NASA workshop. The deadline for this registration is September 20, 2006. The 2006 UN/NASA Workshop on the International Heliophysical Year and Basic Space Sciences will continue the work initiated during the first workshop in Abu Dhabi in 2005 in taking space science instrumentation, observation and education to the developing nations of the world. This will be accomplished through the partnership between the International Heliophysical Year (IHY) program and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). A new feature of the 2006 workshop is introducing data bases and relevant software tools that can promote space science activities. There have been enormous number of space missions that have been accumulating large data bases of scientific data. Similarly, long-term data bases are available from ground-based observations. These data can be utilized in ways different from originally intended for understanding the heliophysical processes. One of the goals of the second workshop is to identify such data bases and make them available to the world community with necessary software tools so that scientists from developing countries can benefit from them without having to deploy instruments. More details at the web site: http://www.iiap.res.in/ihy/index.htm Nat Gopalswamy Hans Haubold Siraj Hasan ISOC Co-chairs Notes from the IAU General Assembly There was a significant visibility for IHY during the 26th General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Prague (August 14-25, 2006). Special Session 5 on "Astronomy for the developing world" had 4 IHY talks providing general information on IHY (D. Webb), overview of the UN Basic Space Sciences program (H. Haubold), IHY outreach activities (C. R. Soares) and the small instrument deployment program (N. Gopalswamy). There was also discussion on IHY in the IAU Division II business meeting (D. Webb). N. Gopalswamy dedicated his overview talk on IHY during the Division II Working Group session on International Collaboration on Space Weather to Professor James Van Allan, the US space pioneer who passed away the week before the IAU General Assembly. There were also presentations by A. Stepanov, C. Mandrini, and J.-L. Bougeret on regional IHY coordination. J.-L Bougeret presented the European plan to hold an "Observatory Open House" on June 10, 2007. This is a great idea and should become a global activity. IHY Outreach should tale this up and implement it. Exhibits planned by the European IHY for the Observatory Open House can be duplicated in many countries. N. Gopalswamy gopals@ssedmail.gsfc.nasa.gov From the IHY Secretariat Arrangements are being made for the Asia-Pacific Regional Planning Meeting in Beijing (October 9-12, 2006), hosted by IHY Asia-Pacific Regional Coordinator Chi Wang. The local hospitality is borne by the organizers. IHY thanks Chi Wang for his efforts. The official IHY start date is March 1, 2007. There will be a special IHY opening ceremony held during the second week of the annual meeting UNOOSA Science and Technology Sub Committee. The likely date is February 19, 2007. Arrangements are also being made for a one-day symposium to finalize the IHY activities for 2007-2009. J.-L. Bougeret (European regional Coordinator) and H. Rucker (Austrian national coordinator) will make necessary arrangements. We welcome Drs. Jayanta Acharya (Nepal) and Boonraksar Soonthornthum (Thailand) and new national IHY representatives. N. Gopalswamy gopals@ssedmail.gsfc.nasa.gov About the IHY Newsletter To post to the IHY Newsletter, please send an email to the IHY Newsletter Editor K.S. Balasubramaniam at bala{at}nso.edu with "IHY News Item" in the subject line. Previous IHY Newsletters and News Notes can be found in the "Newsroom" portion of our website. 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IHY Newsletter - September 2006