2019 Workshop Summary

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Summary

The NSF Coupling, Energetics and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions (CEDAR) upper atmospheric community met from Sunday, June 16 through Friday, June 21 at the Eldorado and Hilton hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Geospace Environment Modeling (GEM) workshop took place in La Fonda hotel in Santa Fe, NM, the week after CEDAR from 23-28 June, 2019. A GEM-CEDAR committee was formed, which organized the common GEM/CEDAR day on Saturday 22 June, 2019 in the La Fonda hotel. The common day was free and very well received. It was attended by approximately 100 people. The GEM/CEDAR committee decided on common overarching science topics: 1. ion upflow and outflow, 2. conductances and conductivities, 3. observational platforms, and 4. strong to extreme events: September 2017. The schedule with the uploaded presentations can be seen here. The conveners solicited speakers to provide the GEM and CEDAR perspective, and allotted enough time for discussion. Each session had a GEM and CEDAR associated moderator, and there was a lot of discussion and exchange of viewpoints. The GEM/CEDAR day was a success since it furthered the communication between the overlapping research area of the two communities.

A total of 333 participants registered via the CEDAR website among them 109 CEDAR students. The number of participants is similar to 2018 (338) in 2017 (325 participants), in 2016 (345 participants) which was a joint GEM-CEDAR workshop and in 2015 (348 participants). The number of students is slightly lower compared to 2018 with 114 students; 2017 (114 students), 2016 (136 students) and 2015 (143 students). This might be due to the limited available funding for student support. Out of the 109 students 89 students applying for support, 76 students received financial support, among them 10 international students who only receive lodging support.

The CEDAR participants came from 104 different institutions which is an increase from the 90 (2018), 86 (2017) and 76 institutions in 2016. The participants were from 16 different countries (12 different countries in 2018), from the Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Cote d'Ivoire, Germany, India, Netherlands, Peru, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USA. There were 50 international participants. In 2019 there were 24 international institutions presented at CEDAR. This is a slight increase from previous years with 22 (2018), 20 (2017), 13 (2016), 17 (2015), but slightly lower than in 2014 with 25 institutions. There were 67 universities (57 in 2018;49 in 2017; 50 in 2016), 26 laboratories and observatories (26 in 2018; 16 in 2017; 20 in 2016), and 11 businesses (7 in 2018; 11 in 2017; 6 in 2016) presented at the CEDAR workshop.

Overall 72 participants were new to the CEDAR workshop (82 in 2018; 69 in 2017; 69 in 2016). 47 of first time attendants were students (43% of all students). There were 6 undergraduate students (9 in 2018; 12 in 2017; 16 in 2016), and 25 students (18 in 2018;21 in 2017; 19 in 2016, 15 in 2015) came from 16 foreign institutions (13 in 2018; 15 in 2017; 11 in 2016) . The number of undergraduates declined to 6, the number of foreign students is steady. Since funding depended on presenting a poster, all students presented a poster at the poster session. All poster presenters got wiki logins to be able to upload their posters, which was required for the 86 students in the student poster competition. 57 non-student posters (38 in 2018; 45 in 2017; 50 in 2016, 50 in 2015) were presented or about 35% (25% in 2018) of the 162 total CEDAR posters. This is a significant increase from 2018.

Due to reduced CEDAR budget the number of students who receive travel support had to be limited. In 2018, the CSSC developed a set of criteria which is available at the CEDAR website. Only students who present a poster can receive support. Approximately 7.5% of the total funding is allocated to students residing outside the US and can receive lodging support. The remaining funds support students residing within the US. From these funds 10% goes to undergraduates, and then 35%, 25% and 15% to first, second and more than 2-times recipients of CEDAR financial support, respectively. The remaining 15% can be used to evenly distribute funding, e.g., with respect to geographic location, adviser. It was the first year, we had to account for previous received support. In 2019, 89 students (119 students in 2018) applied for funding by the March 15, 2019 deadline. This is significantly less than the year before. Among them were 18 students (28 students in 2018) from aboard, and 71 residing within the US (91 in 2018). They were from 76 (77 in 2018) unique CEDAR advisers and from 23 different institutions (42 in 2018). 73 PhD students (88 in 2018), 11 MS / MA student (20 in 2018), 5 BS / BA students (5 in 2018) applied. There were 62 (84 in 2018) male and 22 (29 in 2018) female students with 5 (6 in 2018) not identifying their gender. There were 75 (78 in 2018) students selected for support; 65 (68 in 2018) students residing within the US, and 10 students outside the US.

There were 162 posters (2018: 151 posters; 2017: 153 posters; 2016: 171 posters) at two poster sessions from 4-7 PM on Tuesday and Wednesday, where the CEDAR posters were separated into 84 Mesosphere-Lower-Thermosphere (MLT), Solar-terrestrial Interaction & coupling, and data assimilation posters on Tuesday and 78 Ionosphere-Thermosphere (IT) posters on Wednesday. There were 115 CEDAR student presenters, including 6 undergraduate posters. 86 posters were in the student poster competition. Prizes were a certificate, and one of the books from the "Heliophysics" series (edited by Karel Schrijver, George Sisco, Fran Bagenal, and Jan Sojka) for the first place winners. The poster prize winners are:

IT 1st prize

• Zhu, Qingyu, University of Texas at Arlington, "Impacts of binning methods on high-latitude electrodynamics: Static vs boundary-oriented binning" (pdf)

IT 2nd place

• Joshi, Pratik, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, "Parametric estimation of neutral hydrogen density using proton continuity balance with TIMED/GUVI and SAMI3" (pdf)
• Sivadas, Nithin, Boston University, "Optical Signature of Outer Radiation Belt Boundary" (pdf)

IT Honorable mention

• Ponder, Brandon, University of Michigan, "Solving for the Thermal Conductivity Coefficients  Experimentally" (pdf)
• Wang, Zihan, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, "Segmentation of Storm enhanced density (SED) by boundary flows associated with westward drifting partial ring current" (pdf)

IT Undergraduate honorable mention

• Coppeans, Thomas, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, "GNSS TEC and Scintillation Variations Following Solar Wind Dynamic Pressure Enhancement" (pdf)

MLT 1st place

• Janalizadeh Choobbasti, Reza, Pennsylvania State University , "Photoionization and electron impact ionization of metallic species at sprite altitudes as a mechanism of initiation of sprite streamers" (pdf)

MLT 2nd place

• Maimaiti, Maimaitirebike, Virginia Tech , "A deep Learning Based Approach to Predict the Onset of Magnetic Substorms" (pdf)
• Inchin, Pavel, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University , "Atmosphere and ionosphere responses to infrasonic acoustic waves driven by the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake" (pdf)

MLT Honorable mention

• Malhotra, Garima, University of Michigan , "Influence of Lower Thermospheric Circulation on Semi-Annual Oscillation in the Ionosphere and Thermosphere using GITM, MSIS and WACCM-X" (pdf)

MLT Honorable mention

• Urco, Juan, Leibniz-Institute of Atmospheric Physics , "Sparse meteor signal recovery from MIMO radar measurements" (pdf)
• Rodriguez-Zuluaga, Juan, GFZ Potsdam , "Assessment of the plasma and magnetic pressure balance across equatorial plasma depletions" (pdf)

MLT Undergraduate honorable mention

• Tyska, Justin, University of Texas at Arlington , "Volcano-generated Ionospheric Disturbances: Comparison of GITM-R simulations with GNSS observations" (pdf)

Thanks to the chief judges, Susan Nossal, Loren Chang, Liying Qian and Jonathan Snively, and special thanks to the 11 IT and15 MLT judges for their time and discussions to find the winners. Thanks to all the students who participated in the student poster competition and to their advisers.

Student Workshop

The  student workshop was on Sunday under the theme “Core Aeronomy and Data Science”. The student workshop was organized by the student representatives, Nithin Sivadas and Matthew Grawe, and was very well attended. The student day included overview talks about the atmosphere and ionosphere and the challenges. And the afternoon was focused on data science topics. The students included an XandWhy podcast by Aaron Ridley and guest Elizabeth MacDonald (NASA). Non-students were welcomed to attend the student workshop. The student day concluded with a location hunting. There were one student specific events on Tuesday” lunch with a scientist”. The students also organized a hackathon on Monday evening which was very well attended. The new student representative is Komal Kumari coming in for outgoing Nithin Sivadas.

The 30th CEDAR Prize Lecture was given by Xinzhao Chu from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Xinzhao gave a very interesting presentation with the title “CEDAR Prize lecture: Coupling from the Atmosphere to Geospace in Antarctica” (pdf) about her very impressive research in Antarctica. The Distinguished Lecture was given by Cheryl Huang from Air Force Research Laboratory with the title “Solar wind forcing of the high-latitude ionosphere-thermosphere system” (pdf) highlighting our advances and gaps in understanding the high latitude I-T system. On Wednesday morning the agency update was given by NSF, NASA and AFOSR. For NSF Mike Wiltberger (section head) and Roman Makarevich (Aeronomy) provided an overview. For NASA Janet Kozyra gave an update of NASA programs, and for AFOSR Julie Moses provided an overview of the program. Since discussion time was short a town hall was schedule for Wednesday lunch time. The Town hall gave the community the opportunity to have in depth discussion with NSF represented by the program managers and the section head. Approximately 20 people attended the townhall. The NSF aeronomy program manage Roman Makarevichr also offered office hours, which the community appreciated. The workshop included a tutorial about “CONCERT: Coordinated Ground and Space-based Observations of the Ionosphere-Thermosphere System” (pdf) in connection with the new Grand Challenge Workshop “Coordinated Ground and Space-based Observations of the Ionosphere Thermosphere System”. We had 4 science highlights and 4 early career science highlights. As it was started last year, time was dedicated to early career scientists science highlight. The combination of senior and more junior presenters worked well. The current grand challenge workshop is in its second year and presented a progress update in the plenary session. View a list of GC workshops. In general GC workshops provide a tutorial in the plenary session and meet for 4 hrs. The CEDAR Prize lecture and the tutorials were videotaped and are all presentation pdf files can be viewed on the 2019 Agenda.

Workshops

Apart from the Sunday Student Workshop, there were 29 individual CEDAR workshops, including the two Grand Challenge workshops. We had 28, 31, 38, 26, 31, 24, and 32 individual workshops in2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012, respectively. Some workshop presentations are linked to individual workshop pages, where workshop conveners and speakers are encouraged to add .pdf files of their talks to the wiki to make the meeting archive more complete and useful. Participants are encouraged to add content to the Workshop URL which can be accessed via the 2019 workshop agenda, and upload their poster presentations for IT and MLT sessions . View all  presentations of the plenary session.

Members of the CSSC organized a “LGBTQ+ gathering” on Tuesday night, and this informal event will be continued in the future. The CEDAR organizers also started a bulletin board in 2018 to make it easier for community members to connect if there is a need of childcare, shared lodging, or carpooling. But it was not used in 2019.

For 2020, the CEDAR Workshop will be held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from 19-26 June 2020. GEM will be in Hawaii and therefore no joint day is planned.