CEDAR email: Remembering Yohsuke Kamide

[Eric Kihn - NOAA Federal]

The ionospheric modeling community lost a founder and principal contributor
when Yohsuke Kamide passed away peacefully on Thursday Dec 9th, 2021. After
several years of deteriorating health but continued productivity he passed
with his family by his side in Tokyo. The community has lost a true
scientific pioneer and leader and beyond that, a real mentor for many young
scientists whom he brought into the field.



Kamide obtained a PhD. at Tokyo University in 1972 after graduating from
Hokkaido University. Kamide is best known for his seminal 1981 paper,
“Estimation of Ionospheric Electric-fields, Ionospheric currents, and
Field-aligned Currents from Ground Magnetic Records” and the subsequent KRM
model which was prevalent for many years in the field. His most cited work
is “What is a Geomagnetic Storm,”  a 1994 paper he co-authored. Many of us
have used this in our own publications and presentations. Kamide made
impressive and lasting contributions across nearly fifty years of academic
publication and scientific leadership.



It's hard to adequately describe the total impact of Kamide’s work but
before he passed he had over 120 peer reviewed publications; dozens of
those papers have citations in the hundreds. He was Director of the
Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory (STEL) where he led the real-time
mapping of ionospheric electric fields and currents and field-aligned
currents through the  Geospace Environment Data Analysis System (GEDAS). He
did multiple sabbaticals in the United States including the University of
Colorado, University of Alaska, NOAA (Boulder) and NCAR.  In 2010, he
became the director of the Rikubetsu Space and Earth Science Museum. In
recognition of his comprehensive research on the generation of aurora
borealis and his foundational work on space weather forecasting, Prof.
Kamide has received many awards, including the 2003 Price Medal of
Britain’s Royal Astronomical Society, and the 2012 Axford  Medal of the
Asia Oceania Geoscience Society. He was also instrumental in publishing a
series of comic books covering the sun, aurorae, geomagnetic storms and
other topics both in the US and Japan helping to popularize the field with
school age children.



Throughout his career, Kamide was known as an excellent host.  His STEL was
host to young researchers from around the globe and a valuable
international meeting point for scientists in the field. Kamide was a
leader of the 2003 IUGG meeting in Sapporo that presented an extensive
scientific program . All of us who were there also enjoyed the cultural and
physical beauty of Japan including the welcome ceremony which was held in
the Sapporo Convention Center, Sapporo, where The Emperor of Japan was
present.



Kamide will be remembered as the brilliant scientist he was, a uniter of
science across the Pacific, a master of finding just the right buffet on
any continent, and a scientist and mentor who developed strong students
from many nations thereby spreading his legacy for generations.



We will miss Kamide deeply and remember him as a founder in our field.


-- 
Eric A. Kihn, Ph.D.
Division Chief NCEI OGSSD
e-mail: Eric.A.Kihn at noaa.gov
Voice: 303 497-6346       Fax:  303 497-6513
Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance
toward the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful scenes are to
be observed from each new vantage point.
- Harold B. Melchar
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