European General Assembly for the International Heliophysical Year
January 10th and 13th 2006
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The first European General Assembly for the International Heliophysical Year was held between January 10th and 13th 2006 at the headquarters of the CNRS in Paris (France), with 113 participants representing 27 nations.
The “International Heliophysical Year” is one of four International Years that will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the International Geophysical Year. Representatives of the other International Years (“International Polar Year” – IPY, “International Year of Planet Earth” – IYPE, “electronic Geophysical Year” – eGY) presented a summary of their activities. All these years are complementary in their goals and their approaches to studying the Earth and its environment. Illustrations of coordinated activities were offered through examples from the ICESTAR/IHY common programmes for IPY.
The term “heliophysical” defines the scientific focus of the programme: the study of the universal physical processes taking place throughout the heliosphere. Some examples were given to illustrate the diversity of the structures and the universality of the physics involved, such as magnetic reconnection, turbulence, energy transport etc. Sun-Earth relationships are also an important aspect of IHY and were illustrated by several talks.
The basic instrument to help achieve the scientific goals of IHY is the“Coordinated Investigation Programme” (CIP) and the principles of a CIP were detailed (see also: http://ihy2007.org.uk/HowCIPsWork.shtm ). The scientific activities within many CIPs will start with coordinated observations between ground-based and space-borne instruments. Consequently, the observing capabilities of numerous instruments were reviewed as were the procedures to gain access to them and their data. Instruments addressed ranged from large infrastructures like radars, ground-based solar telescopes or space instruments through to arrays of small instruments like those for solar irradiance variation studies or helioseismology.
Twenty European National coordinators described their existing and planned projects. In addition, representatives from Egypt, Angola and the coordinator of the “Balkan and Black sea region” gave summaries of the activities underway in their respective countries. The diversity of approaches to public outreach activities demonstrates the richness of the European potential: TV and radio shows, board games on space weather, specific programmes for schools and universities, and workshops for teachers are just some of the ideas that were proposed by delegates. Apart from these national and individual initiatives, specific activities that required European coordination were discussed, including: the creation of a DVD about the heliosphere, the centralisation of audio-visual resources, holding a European day of heliophysics, the creation of a space weather alert system. You can follow the development of these activities (and/or join them) from the IHY European website (see below).
International IHY site: http://ihy2007.org
IHY Europe: http://www.lesia.obspm.fr/IHY/
The organisers want to thank the following institutions without whose support the meeting would not have been possible: CNRS, INSU, Observatoire de Paris, LESIA, PNST, Région Ile de France, French section of the SCOSTEP, French Embassies in Czech Republic, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Romania and Spain, and the CNES.
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