CEDAR email: Message from CEDAR/GEM Chairs

[Mark Conde]

  CEDAR & GEM Communities,

As the Chairs of our respective Steering Committees, we are writing to 
express our support and gratitude for the work and expertise of all who 
enable, contribute to, and manage these programs. The scientific purpose 
of CEDAR and GEM is to study and understand Earth's upper atmosphere and 
the rest of the geospace environment, along with the space weather that 
impacts these regions. This understanding is critical to making 
ground-breaking scientific discoveries in the Sun-Earth system and 
aligns with the highest priority strategic goals of NSF and NASA. This 
work is also important to the security and prosperity of the United 
States and our global partners, as has been amply demonstrated by the 
extensive historical record of space weather events that have disrupted 
or even destroyed spacecraft -- most notably including the simultaneous 
loss of tens of commercial satellites in February 2022, as a result of a 
modest geomagnetic storm.

Many of the departments and agencies that support and enable our work 
are currently undergoing rapid and substantial refocusing of their 
priorities. During the course of this, it is natural that we may 
experience uncertainty for the future of our field. One way to empower 
ourselves in uncertain times is to advocate. An impactful way to 
advocate is for us to work with the government relations professionals 
at our institutions, who regularly interact with policymakers and other 
stakeholders on the Hill. The grassroots Heliophysics Coalition, which 
operates jointly with AGU and AAS, is a great resource to help guide you 
in how to advocate effectively. We recommend reading their recent Call 
to Action email (sent to GEM/CEDAR/SPA Newsletters), or reaching out to 
the points of contact for the Coalition, Ian Cohen 
(Ian.Cohen at jhuapl.edu) and Gordon Emslie (gordon.emslie at wku.edu), 
immediately (this week).

While we do not yet know the outcome of these impacts at our funding 
agencies, we remain confident that the work of CEDAR and GEM is needed 
and appreciated. This includes providing basic research, transitioning 
actionable knowledge to operations, supporting and developing our 
existing workforce, and training the next generation to ensure 
continuity of scientific expertise and leadership.

We encourage our communities to continue your good work and continue 
supporting one another. We invite you all to join us at the June 2025 
joint CEDAR/GEM workshop in Des Moines Iowa, where we will present our 
work together, to showcase our newest and most exciting scientific 
discoveries.


With best wishes from Mark Conde, Christine Gabrielse, Lynn Harvey, and 
Allison Jaynes