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<b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6">
</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><b><span
style="font-weight:normal;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"></span></span></b><span
style="font-weight:normal;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"></span></span><b><span
style="font-weight:normal;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"></span></span></b><b><span
style="font-weight:normal;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Dear</span></span></b><b><span
style="font-weight:normal;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"> Colleagues</span></span></b><b><span
style="font-weight:normal;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">,</span></span></b></p>
<b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6"> <br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">At the upcoming CEDAR-GEM workshop, the GEM SIMIC focus group and the CEDAR Grand<b> </b>Challenges “Storms and substorms without borders” (SSWB) will hold a joint session that will be organized around our new “Sub-Auroral Polarization Streams (SAPS) Focus Study”. On behalf of the SIMIC and SSWB organizers, I would like to invite you to participate in this focus study and contribute to our workshop.</span></p>
<br>
</b><b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">
</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">The description of the “focus study” is included in the end of the message. If you are interested, please let us know as soon as possible if you will attend, and if you plan to contribute. The final format of the workshop will be decided later.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">
</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><b><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">
</span></b></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><b><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">
</span></b></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><b><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">We would like to make our study very unique, completely different from "another GEM challenge" which tends to focus on skill scores etc. Our goal is to make significant improvement of our scientific understanding of M-I-T coupling regarding SAPS. We need your help to accomplish our goal.</span></b></p>
</b><b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6"><br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.</span></p>
<br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Regards,</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">organizers<b>:</b></span><br>
Naomi Maruyama, Stan Sazykin, Mike Ruohoniemi<b
style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6">,
Phil Erickson</b>, Simon Shepherd, <b
style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6">Tony
Mannucci, </b>Jo Baker<br>
<b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6"></b></p>
</b>
<hr size="2" width="100%">
<p><b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6"><br>
</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:2.15988;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><b
style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">###### <b>SAPS Focus Study </b>######</span></b></p>
<b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:2.15988;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">SAPS electric field structures are narrow channels of westward flows (poleward electric fields) encountered both in the subauroral ionosphere and the conjugate inner<b> </b>magnetosphere during a variety of geomagnetic conditions, including geomagnetic storms main and recovery phases, as well as during non-storm periods of variable<b> </b>convection and during substorms. These channels are localized primarily in the dusk-to-midnight local time sector equatorward of the auroral oval boundary. On some<b> </b>occasions, they are observed to persist for many hours. The spatial localization and the pronounced structured nature of SAPS channels make them an ideal focus for<b> </b>targeted investigations of our current understanding of the physics of the magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling processes involved in the generation and evolution of<b> </b>SAPS, and for testing the capabilities of numerical models to reproduce the observed phenomena.</span></p>
</b><b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:2.15988;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-align:
justify;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">
</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:2.15988;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-align:
justify;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">We therefore invite theorists, modelers, and experimentalists to participate in a collaborative effort focused on the physics of SAPS, with the initial round of discussion<b> </b>taking place at the 2016 summer CEDAR-GEM workshop. For this first phase, we invite contributions that present simulation results of the subauroral ionospheric electric<b> </b>fields for several selected intervals. The intervals were selected based on available observations:</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:2.15988;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-align:
justify;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">
</span></p>
</b>
<ol>
<li><b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:2.15988;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-align:
justify;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">March 16, 2013 04-10 UT (pre-storm SAPS);</span></p>
</b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:2.15988;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-align:
justify;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">March 17, 2013 06-20 UT (main phase SAPS);</span></p>
</b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:2.15988;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-align:
justify;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">March 20, 2013 04-10 UT (recovery phase SAPS);</span></p>
</b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:2.15988;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-align:
justify;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">June 16, 2015, 06-10 UT (non-storm conditions);</span></p>
</b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"></span></b><b
style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">June 1</span></b><span
style="font-weight:normal;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">7</span></span><b
style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">, 2015, 06-10 UT (non-storm conditions)<b>.</b></span></b></li>
</ol>
<p><b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6"><br>
</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:2.15988;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><b
style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Along with predicted subauroral electric fields in the afternoon to post-midnight MLT sector, contributions should include, if possible, relevant electrodynamic quantities<b> </b>such as ionospheric conductivities, inner magnetospheric particle and fields distributions, total electron content (TEC), field-aligned currents, magnetic field<b> </b>perturbations, or anything else that may help in unraveling the dynamics of plasma processes involved in the formation of SAPS.</span></b></p>
<b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-be8785f8-955e-a797-abcc-2034f74de1f6"> <br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:2.15988;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-align:
justify;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">At the workshop, we invite participants to engage in a robust discussion of the nature of SAPS, the role of plasma instabilities, the control of occurrence of SAPS by solar<b> </b>wind and IMF parameters, ionospheric preconditioning influence on SAPS appearance, and the role of the inner magnetospheric pressure-bearing plasma in determining<b> </b>SAPS lifetimes. In addition to numerical simulations, we welcome presentations that address observations of SAPS and related effects (both in the ionosphere and the<b> </b>magnetosphere) in the coupled M-I-T system relevant to the selected events.</span></p>
<br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:2.15988;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-align:
justify;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Results should be sent to the workshop organizers (at least two weeks before the workshop). A more detailed description of the SAPS focused collaborative study, with<b> </b>background information on the selected intervals, will be available at the following URL:</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:2.15988;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-align:
justify;"><a
href="http://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/community/CEDAR_ITM/cedar-grand.php"
style="text-decoration:none;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"></span></a><a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/community/CEDAR_ITM/cedar-grand.php"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/community/CEDAR_ITM/cedar-grand.php">http://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/community/CEDAR_ITM/cedar-grand.php</a></a><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">
</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:2.15988;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-align:
justify;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">which will also serve as a repository for contributions and results.</span></p>
<br>
<br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Description of the workshop: </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><a
href="http://cedarweb.vsp.ucar.edu/wiki/index.php/2015_Workshop:Storms_and_Substorms_Without_Borders#CEDAR_Science_Challenge"
style="text-decoration:none;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"></span></a><b><a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://cedarweb.vsp.ucar.edu/wiki/index.php/2016_Workshop:MIT_Coupling#Description"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://cedarweb.vsp.ucar.edu/wiki/index.php/2016_Workshop:MIT_Coupling#Description">http://cedarweb.vsp.ucar.edu/wiki/index.php/2016_Workshop:MIT_Coupling#Description</a></a></b>
</p>
<br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Description of the GEM SIMIC focus group:
</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"></span><a
href="http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/gemwiki/index.php/FG:_Storm-Time_Inner_Magnetosphere-Ionosphere_Convection"
style="text-decoration:none;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"></span></a><a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/gemwiki/index.php/FG:_Storm-Time_Inner_Magnetosphere-Ionosphere_Convection"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/gemwiki/index.php/FG:_Storm-Time_Inner_Magnetosphere-Ionosphere_Convection">http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/gemwiki/index.php/FG:_Storm-Time_Inner_Magnetosphere-Ionosphere_Convection</a></a><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"></span></p>
<br>
<br>
</b> <br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
--------------------------------------
Naomi Maruyama
CIRES, Univ. of Colorado at Boulder
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
phone: +1 303-497-4857
email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:naomi.maruyama@noaa.gov">naomi.maruyama@noaa.gov</a>
</pre>
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