CEDAR email: Fall AGU session, MAISR meeting in Turkey, CEDAR-GEM meeting

[Barbara Emery]

This is a generic mailing to the CEDAR community sent 09 June 2011.
Meetings and jobs are listed at http://cedarweb.hao.ucar.edu under
'Community' as 'Calendar of Meetings' and 'CEDAR related opportunities'.
CEDAR email messages are under 'Community' as 'CEDAR email Newsletters'.
All are in 'Quick Links' on the main page.
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(1) 05-09 Dec 2011, San Francisco, CA, Fall AGU Session SA04: Coupled Geospace 
Studies.
 From Alan Burns (aburns at ucar.edu).
See also http://sites.agu.org/fallmeeting/scientific-program/session-search/

(2) Movable Antarctic Incoherent Scatter Radar (MAISR) Workshop at URSI, 
Istanbul  13.-14. August 2011.
From: Anja Strømme <Anja.Stromme at sri.com>.
See also http://www.ursigass2011.org/ and 
ftp://isr.sri.com/pub/Antarctic-ISR/Antarctic_ISR_Workshop_2008.pdf

(3) CEDAR-GEM 26 June-01 July 2011, Santa Fe, NM: "Nightside Multi-scale 
Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere (MIT) Electrodynamic Coupling during 
Geomagnetic Disturbances".
From: Shasha Zou <sha at atmos.ucla.edu>.
See also 
http://cedarweb.hao.ucar.edu/wiki/index.php/2011_Workshop:Multi_scale_MIT_coupling
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(1) 05-09 Dec 2011, San Francisco, CA, Fall AGU Session SA04: Coupled Geospace 
Studies.
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 From Alan Burns (aburns at ucar.edu).

Description: Significant improvements have been made in the last 10 years in 
developing coupled models of Geospace. The increased sophistication of these 
models has led to opportunities to better understand interactions between the 
various Geospace regions. This session solicits presentations that address this 
coupling, including, but not limited to, 
magnetosphere-plasmasphere-ionosphere-thermosphere interactions, and radiation 
belts and ion outflow in a coupled Geospace system. Contributions pertaining to 
model validation and experimental studies that shed light on this system 
coupling are also sought.

Convenors: Alan Burns, Joe Huba, Geoff Crowley and Mike Wiltberger.

contact: aburns at ucar.edu

At present session information can be found by typing SA04 in
http://sites.agu.org/fallmeeting/scientific-program/session-search/

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(2) Movable Antarctic Incoherent Scatter Radar (MAISR) Workshop at URSI, 
Istanbul  13.-14. August 2011.
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From: Anja Strømme <Anja.Stromme at sri.com>.

We are hereby drawing your attention to the second “International Antarctic 
Incoherent Scatter Radar Workshop” to be held in conjunction with the XXX URSI 
general assembly (http://www.ursigass2011.org/) in Istanbul, Turkey, 13. – 14. 
August 2011.

In August 2008 the first International Antarctic Incoherent Scatter Radar 
Workshop was hosted in conjunction with the XXIX URSI general assembly in 
Chicago, and the report “The Antarctic Incoherent Scatter Radar Facility – 
Transformational Solar-Terrestrial Research in the High South” 
(ftp://isr.sri.com/pub/Antarctic-ISR/Antarctic_ISR_Workshop_2008.pdf) was 
published shortly thereafter.

The U.S. geospace sciences community has proposed a Movable Antarctic Incoherent 
Scatter Radar (MAISR) to be considered by the National Science Foundation. The 
first MAISR is currently targeted for the U.S. Antarctic station McMurdo to 
address the polar cap ionospheric research, and the MAISR's feasibility study is 
underway. The overarching goal of the MAISR Workshop is to inspire international 
scientific communities to consider be partners in the MAISR construction and 
exploitation, especially looking for the future sites where MAISR could be moved 
after initial operation.

Topics of the workshop will be:

*Construction of a road map of the relevant science topics
*Creation of a timeline for location/re-location of the MAISR systems and a 
science plan compliant with:
**The most urgent science topics to address
**Natural variation like solar cycles
**National and international science and infrastructure plans, both in 
Antarctica and the conjugate high north.

The meeting will last all day Saturday 13. August and end after lunch Sunday 14. 
August 2011, and will be a combination of invited and contributed talks. A more 
detailed agenda and information about the venue and deadlines will follow shortly.

For more information contact Anja Strømme (anja.stromme at sri.com).

Very best regards

The MAISR Team

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(3) CEDAR-GEM 26 June-01 July 2011, Santa Fe, NM: "Nightside Multi-scale 
Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere (MIT) Electrodynamic Coupling during 
Geomagnetic Disturbances".
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From: Shasha Zou <sha at atmos.ucla.edu>.

Conveners: Michael Nicolls, Shasha Zou, Larry Lyons

We invite contributions to this joint session that will be held on Wednesday, 
June 29th, 10-12 am and 1:30-3:30 pm (2 2-hour sessions). We would like to 
encourage a workshop-style presentation with 10-15 min including discussion 
time. Please contact Michael Nicolls (michael.nicolls at sri.com), Shasha Zou 
(shashaz at umich.edu) or Larry Lyons (larry @atmos.ucla.edu) to schedule your 
contribution.

Description of objectives of this session:

The MIT system behaves as a complex system characterized by coupling and 
feedbacks, preconditioning, and memory. This system is of great interest to both 
the GEM and CEDAR communities and includes a variety of important topics that 
are common to both initiatives. Understanding the MIT during periods of 
geomagnetic disturbances as an integrated system as well as from perspectives of 
each discipline is necessary to move the area forward.

Field-aligned currents (FACs) are the essential mediator between the 
magnetosphere and the ionosphere. FACs modify the ionospheric conductivities by 
increasing or depleting the ionospheric density through associated particle 
precipitation and evacuation processes, respectively. The modified conductivity 
in turn regulates the magnetospheric drivers by changing the exerting forces and 
electric field distributions, including generating important structured electric 
fields, such as Sub-Auroral Polarization Streams / Sub-Auroral Ion Drifts 
(SAPS/SAID). The structured ionospheric density also provides important 
information about the location/polarity of the FACs and the energy distribution 
of the precipitating particles in the case of upward FACs.

Geomagnetic disturbances targeted in this joint session include, but are not 
limited to, substorms, PBIs, streamers and SMCs. These geomagnetic disturbances 
are associated with enhanced FACs and highly structured auroral forms. The 
characteristics of FACs, including their 2-D horizontal distribution and their 
development and evolution through the course of these disturbances, have never 
been directly observed at sufficient temporal resolution to resolve the 
intricacies of their dynamics. The newly available Active Magnetosphere and 
Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment (AMPERE) magnetometers will enable 
us to conduct for the first time 2-D imaging of the FACs distribution. Combined 
with the perpendicular currents calculated from existing models, they will be 
able to provide the global-scale 3-D current distribution in the ionosphere. In 
addition, the continental-scale THEMIS ground-based ASIs and the multi-spectral 
cameras will enable us to associate auroral forms with direct FAC measurements. 
Moreover, ground-based radars, including both coherent and incoherent scatter 
radars, can provide detailed information about the global convection flow and 
thus electric field patterns, as well as the altitude profile of electron 
density. Furthermore, with the increasing availability of ground-based GPS 
receivers, global-scale total electron content can be obtained and the effect of 
FACs in modifying the ionospheric electron density distribution can be readily 
evaluated. In the magnetosphere, the NASA THEMIS satellites enable investigation 
of the linkage between the physical processes in the magnetosphere and 
structures observed in the ionosphere and thermosphere. The effect of those 
geomagnetic disturbances on the thermospheric wind can also be monitored by the 
ground-based Fabry-Perot spectrometers. These instruments as a whole provide us 
with an unprecedented opportunity for imaging the MIT system in 4-D and for 
investigating the electrodynamic coupling of the MIT system during geomagnetic 
disturbances.

This joint session proposal is a call for a multi-instrument observational 
campaign, requiring close collaborations between both GEM and CEDAR communities. 
It is timely because of the availability of simultaneous observations from 
multiple instruments, including those mentioned above and many other instruments 
and models. In addition, the joint GEM/CEDAR workshop this year will provide us 
with an excellent opportunity to kick off this interdisciplinary research 
initiative and a forum for presenting results, discussing solutions and 
exchanging ideas.

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