Dear colleagues,
Here is a short report on last week's meeting.
The prospects for space weather projects within Framework 7 were
discussed at a meeting in Paris on 23 January attended by about 40 space
weather experts from across Europe. The countries represented included
Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy,
Poland, Spain, Switzerland and the UK; ESA was also represented.
The meeting was started with a review of knowledge on FP7 (e.g. which
are the relevant FP7 activities, what is in the work programme for each
activity and what is the status of calls for proposals). The bulk of the
meeting was then devoted to review of space weather issues in order to
identify the interests of the community. These interests cover the whole
chain of space weather including planetary space weather, the solar
sources of space weather, ionospheric effects & knowledge,
geomagnetically induced currents, spacecraft effects, aviation effects,
artificial space weather, solar UV variability and virtual observatories
for space weather. For more detail, please the presentations from Mike
Hapgood, Jean Lilenstein and Risto Pirjola - available via links at the
end of this note.
These interests were mapped to FP7 activities at a small follow-up
meeting on 24 January. This identified a number of FP7 ideas to pursue:
1. Participation in the next phase of Europlanet, which is planned to be
an I3 bid (see note below) in the 2008 call for research
infrastructures. This is the natural home for planetary space weather
and preliminary discussions indicate that Europlanet would welcome ideas
on planetary space weather as part of its planning process. A proposal
on planetary radiation environments is already submitted by Petteri
Nieminen. Additional proposals should be submitted urgently. Mike
Hapgood and Jean Lilenstein will draft a note and circulate to SWWT by
next week.
2. An I3 proposal for terrestrial space weather - also a bid for 2008
but structured so it clearly complements Europlanet. This could combine
elements of measurements, models, calibration and validation, outreach.
Mike Hapgood will draft a preliminary note by mid-February. This can
then be iterated electronically ahead of discussion at the next SWWT
meeting (Brussels, 10 May tbc). Discussions can also take at other
appropriate meetings, e.g. the COST 724 meeting at end of May.
3. A bid for virtual observatory against the open call on
e-infrastructures (deadline 2 May). If this is to proceed a decision is
needed urgently. Christian Jacquey and Chris Harvey presented some
compelling ideas during the meeting - in particular showing that the
current wealth of planetary missions gives a unique opportunity to make
measurements at multiple points across the solar system and thereby
observe the propagate of space weather phenomena outwards from the Sun.
This is a critical issue for better understanding of space weather, but
we need new tools (namely a VO) to convert these observations into
useful science. Chris Harvey will circulate a note on this and invite
people interested to contact him.
4. A bid against the open call for space theme (deadline 19 June). It
was agreed that the space weather community needs to be seen to bid into
the space theme - to show/maintain our interest in FP7 space activities.
However, the present call has a poor fit to space weather. The best
opportunity is the space science component of the call - and especially
the element concerned with maximising the scientific return from
existing space science data. Mike Hapgood noted that many space weather
tools (SPENVIS, SEDAT) are based on analysis of historic datasets from
1969 to 1995. He speculated that there is scope to advance space weather
knowledge by mining the many excellent datsets collected in the past
ecade. To take this forward it was agreed to issue an urgent call for
ideas and review the response to see if it provides the basis for a bid.
There was also discussion on whether space weather can be included in
GMES activities, on which the bulk of the FP7 space funding is targeted.
The current position is that attempts to raise space weather in the
context of GMES not been successful. In the short-term, it seems
unlikely that space weather can be promoted as an environmental service
within GMES. The way forward is probably to raise awareness of space
weather as an issue for the security of GMES spacecraft - both through
the usual space weather effects and perhaps the risk from artificial
space weather (i.e. where a hostile action generates conditions in space
that can damage GMES assets).
A list of actions was prepared and is attached as an Excel spreadsheet.
Note: I3 is a concept for developing European research infrastructures.
I3 projects should combine three infrastructure elements in a
synergistic way, namely:
a. networking activities (meeting, visits, etc) to allow European
researchers to work together more effectively,
b. trans-national access, i.e. measures to open up scientific facilities
(measurement programmes, databases, etc) to wider European access
c. joint research activities.
Presentations:
Mike Hapgood's overview of FP7 and review of possible space weather
activities:
http://listserv.cclrc.ac.uk/files/SWWT/paris_23jan.ppt
Europlanet background:
http://listserv.cclrc.ac.uk/files/SWWT/europlanet.ppt
Jean Lilenstein's presentation on Space weather European Portal:
http://listserv.cclrc.ac.uk/files/SWWT/SpaceWeather_EuropeanPortal.ppt
Risto's presentation on GIC:
http://listserv.cclrc.ac.uk/files/SWWT/GIC_Paris_230107_Risto.ppt
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