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      id="docs-internal-guid-050fc4cd-28d9-e653-3bcd-cb72028eb018"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Dear
        Colleagues,</span></p>
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style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;"><br>
      </span></p>
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      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">We
        invite you to attend our panel session titled “Assessment of
        Space Environment Models and Data: Validation Metrics,
        Frameworks, and Applications”. The session will occur bright and
        early on Monday morning, December 11 at 08:00 - 10:00, Ernest N.
        Morial Convention Center - 243-244, New Orleans. </span></p>
    <br>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">We
        will have 8 panelists, representing atmospheric, ionospheric,
        magnetospheric, and solar research and applications. A 40-minute
        discussion section will follow the talks, in which the audience
        may engage with the panelists and each other. We are excited to
        have 8 great presentations from our panelists, and are looking
        forward to a lively discussion following the talks. The
        discussion will be devoted to bringing our research communities
        together, with an emphasis on identifying cross-disciplinary
        tools, methods, and approaches to aid in efficient and effective
        research progress, both towards research goals and applications.
        We hope to identify efficient and effective methods and
        approaches utilized across different research and application
        areas that may benefit both researchers and society, which will
        hopefully set the tone for collaborative efforts both for the
        remainder of the meeting, and ongoing into the future. </span></p>
    <br>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">The
        panelists, their affiliations, and their abstract titles are as
        follows:</span></p>
    <br>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Brett
        A. Carter - Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University,
        Australia</span></p>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">SM11E-01:
        “Predicting ionospheric scintillation: Recent advancements and
        future challenges”</span></p>
    <br>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Robert
        A. Steenburgh - National Centers for Environmental Prediction,
        USA</span></p>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">SM11E-02:
        “A Practitioners Perspective on Verification”</span></p>
    <br>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Antti
        A. Pulkkinen - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA</span></p>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">SM11E-03:
        “Lessons learned from recent geomagnetic disturbance model
        validation activities”</span></p>
    <br>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Barbara
        J. Thompson - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA</span></p>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">SM11E-04:
        “Assessing and Adapting Scientific Results for Space Weather
        Research to Operations (R2O)”</span></p>
    <br>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Timothy
        Guild - The Aerospace Corporation, USA</span></p>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">SM11E-05:
        “Space weather tools for satellite anomaly analysis: an example
        and future needs”</span></p>
    <br>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Suzy
        Bingham - The Met Office, UK</span></p>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">SM11E-06:
        Verification of space weather forecasts at the UK Met Office</span></p>
    <br>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Michele
        D. Cash - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, USA</span></p>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">SM11E-07:
        “Space Weather Forecasting at NOAA with Michigan’s Geospace
        Model: Results from the First Year in Real-Time Operations”</span></p>
    <br>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Yaireska
        M. Collado-Vega, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA</span></p>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">SM11E-08:
        “Magnetopause Standoff Position Changes and Geosynchronous Orbit
        Crossings: Models and Observations”</span></p>
    <br>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Session
        Description:</span></p>
    <p dir="ltr"
      style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">The
        assessment of both scientific understanding and its application
        to societal needs can drive progress through providing
        direction, and constructive feedback into the research efforts
        of a field. The tools needed to assess and track this progress
        include metrics, validation techniques, and framework designs.
        Advances in computation and instrumentation, and the resulting
        large data sets, provide new potential for system-wide
        assessment. However, they also provide a challenge for the
        relevant frameworks. Many of the needed tools can be
        cross-disciplinary in their applicability, and the space physics
        research community can learn from, and share with the Earth and
        atmospheric science communities, who likewise share the goals of
        both scientific understanding, and applications beneficial to
        society. The goal of this session is to bring these research
        communities together to discuss current efforts, successful
        approaches, and lessons learned in building and applying tools
        for validation, metrics, and applications to societal needs.</span></p>
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