IAGA News 53
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December 2016 IAGA News No. 53 IAGA, the International Association of Geo- Foreword magnetism and Aeronomy, is the premier international scientific asso- This issue of IAGA News ciation promoting the study of terrestrial contains information and planetary magnetism and space physics about the IAGA activi- ties over the year 2016, with a forward look at preparations for the Sci- entific Assembly in 2017. Indded, I am thrilled to welcome you to the 2017 Contents Joint IAPSO-IAMAS- IAGA Assembly which 1 Message from the President 2 will take place from 27 August to 1 September 2 Preparation for the 2017 Joint 2017 at the Cape Town IAPSO-IAMAS-IAGA Scientific International Convention Assembly 2 Centre (CTICC), South Africa. Cape Town acts as an environmental gateway to many of our scientific interests 3 Swarm mission – probing the geoag- and thus provides an ideal scientific destination for an netic field 3 international conference on various earth system studies. I look forward to seeing as many of you as are able to 4 Reports on Meetings: IAGA- attend in Cape Town next summer. Sponsored or of IAGA interest 4 This issue also contains reports on IAGA activities of dif- 4.1 7th VLF/ELF Remote Sensing of Iono- ferent kinds and provides information about recently de- spheres and Magnetospheres Workshop 4 ceased IAGA scientists. In its present form, IAGA News 4.2 23st EM Induction Workshop .... 5 contains only brief summaries of different activities and 4.3 MT3DINV3: 3rd Workshop on 3-D topics; the reader is referred to the newly disigned IAGA Magnetotelluric Inversion ...... 6 website (www.iaga-aiga.org) for more details. Informa- 4.4 6th IAGA/ICMA/SCOSTEP Work- tion on activities at Division level can be found on each shop on Vertical Coupling in the Division’s website. Atmosphere-Ionosphere System . 7 IAGA News is distributed – in its electronic form – to the 4.5 15th Castle Meetings Workshop . 8 th National Correspondents in the Member Countries, to all 4.6 XVII IAGA Workshop on Geomag- IAGA officers and to scientists who have attended recent netic Observatory Instruments, Data IAGA assemblies. Please feel free to distribute IAGA news Acquisition and Processing ..... 9 around, especially to national policy makers and leaders, 4.7 IAGA-IV Symposium ”Influence of whose decisions can affect the activities of IAGA scien- short and long term solar variability on tists. climate” .............. 10 4.8 International Conference “Data Inten- Mioara Mandea (Secretary-General) sive System Analysis for Geohazard Studies” .............. 10 5 In Memorium 12 IAGA on the Web 6 General information about IAGA 18 Information on IAGA is regularly updated at the IAGA 6.1 IAGA books series published by Springer 18 site: 6.2 IAGA website ............ 19 http://www.iaga-aiga.org/ 6.3 IAGA contact ............ 19 IAGA News 2016 – Page 1 1 Message from the President Next year we are heading for the scientific assembly, which will be held jointly with IAMAS and IAPSO in Cape Town, South Africa. Thanks to great effort of all the conveners, Dear friends and col- working group and division leaders, and our Secretary leagues, dear Geomag- General, 44 IAGA symposia and 4 joint symposia led by netists and Aeronomers, IAGA represent a great appeal and “magnetism” to many It might seem that a rd of us. Moreover, the 3 IAGA Summer School will be year without an IAGA held during the days before the Assembly. I firmly believe assembly is not that that these events will be well attended and will represent busy. However, the con- memorable events in the IAGA records. trary is true; this year was full of small events and actions, organized I would like also to mention that we were also active with from the bottom, which respect to other organizations and upon their request are (and should be also we nominated our representatives in, e.g., the revitalised in the future) the core of IUGG Union Commission for Data and Information. Last IAGA activities. Later in but not least, IAGA contributed to the IUGG Strategic the IAGA News you will Plan for 2016-2023 (many thanks are due to Mioara and find more details in reports from these topical meetings, Kathy for this). organized by the IAGA working groups. I had the oppor- tunity to personally attend two of them. The first one was And not to forget, it is my great pleasure to mention that th a must for me, the 15 “Castle Meeting” on Paleo, Rock our Mioara is awarded the National Order of Merit by and Environmental Magnetism, excellently organised by the decree of the French President for her outstanding our Belgian colleagues in Dinant, Belgium. I would like to scientific career and public service. She will be raised highlight the number of young researchers, i.e. graduate to the rank of Chevalier (Knight) at a special ceremony. and undergraduate students, comprising about 30 out of Congratulations to Mioara! some 90 participants at the meeting. And they performed very well, giving excellent presentations, as pointed out To conclude, I am very optimistic with respect to the by the jury that evaluated the students’ presentations. future; IAGA is viable, with a sizeable number of active This promising trend will hopefully be maintained in the colleagues serving the community, and with a promis- future. A summer school for students was organised in ing growth in the number and quality of our young re- the preceding days at the Geomagnetic Observatory in searchers. I only hope that this will be confirmed by the Dourbes, which was attended by some 20 students from participants at the forthcoming IAGA scientific assembly all around the world. The excellent informal atmosphere in Cape Town. Despite this being a remote location for and enthusiasm of all the lecturers contributed signifi- many, this event should become a highlight of next year. cantly to the success of the event and to the reputation Finally, let me wish you all the best in your work, as well of IAGA amongst the younger generation. The other th as in your personal life, and I look forward to seeing you meeting I attended was the 17 Geomagnetic Observa- next year in Cape Town. tory Workshop in Dourbes, Belgium. It was my first time at this meeting and I am happy to say that the event was great from both the point of view of the scientific level Eduard Petrovsky and the general workshop and family-like atmosphere. (President) 2 Preparation for the 2017 Joint IAPSO-IAMAS-IAGA Scientific Assembly For the 2017 joint IAPSO-IAMAS-IAGA Scien- tific Assembly the route is to South Africa! The meeting will bring many occasion for sci- entists to discuss a wide range of topics, over South Africa is host to many National Research breaks, poster sessions, and the IAGA special din- Facilities including the Hermanus Magnetic Ob- ner party! servatory (where IAGA plans to organise the Time and Place 3rd Summer School), South African Institute for The 2017 Joint IAPSO-IAMAS-IAGA Scientific Aquatic Biodiversity, South African Environmen- Assembly will be organised in Cape Town, South tal Observation Networks and many others that Africa. The Joint Assembly, endorsed by the will be of interest to the participants. IAGA News 2016 – Page 2 University of Cape Town and the South African Town). Department of Science and Technology, will take Key dates place from 27 August to 1 September 2017 at 1 Sept 2016: Registration Opens the Cape Town International Convention Centre 17 Feb 2017: Deadline for Submission and Grant (CTICC). Application 7 April 2017: Notification of Acceptance Local Organising Committee The Local Or- 21 April 2017: Notification of Programme Allo- ganising Committee (LOC) comprises of a mix cation of young early career scientists as well as estab- 5 May 2017: Early Bird Registration Deadline lished researchers in all three earth disciplines. In addition, many of the LOC members are currently More information committee members of the IUGG -South Africa National Committee. Detailed information on programme, abstract submission, registration, accommodation, venue The Local Organising Committee (LOC) is are provided: chaired by Isabelle Ansorge (University of Cape http://www.iapso-iamas-iaga2017.com/ 3 Swarm mission – probing the geoagnetic field Three years into operations since its launch in has initiated the consolidation of ideas for prod- 22 November 2013, the Swarm constellation is ucts evolution and new product procurements. providing excellent measurements of the Earth’s The first call for ideas for new products and magnetic field and associated plasma environ- services has received an overwhelming response. ment. The user community is achieving unprece- All DISC activities are closely coordinated with dented scientific results and exploring new appli- downstream mission exploitation efforts, such cations. as those performed under the Support To Sci- All three-satellite platforms are performing very ence Element umbrella. As such, potential key well, essentially free of any anomalies, and research future activities have been identified the space segment constellation orbit geometry in the field of upper atmosphere (ionosphere- evolves in line with expectation. With regards thermosphere-magnetosphere coupling), climate to the payloads, the main technical and scien- related processes (magnetosphere-atmosphere tific challenges are the limited availability of high- coupling), deep-Earth dynamics processes. quality accelerometer data from Alpha and Bravo, The Swarm constellation could further strengthen the search for optimised (near-continuous) oper- its scientific impact through the integration of ations scenarios for the Thermal Ion Imagers and the Canadian Enhanced Polar Outflow Probe (e- the search for the optimal understanding of the POP) payload as a fourth measurement point. e- optical bench performance for magnetometry and POP is a scientific payload for CASSIOPE (CAS- attitude observations.