[ursi-commission-g] On ICSU dicussions and emerging issues

[Bill Wright]

Dear Christian,

Prompted by Martin Jarvis' remarks about the future of URSI Commission G, I
shall offer a few comments.

If Commission G faces a future of diminishing importance, I think it will be
because it has neglected the "Scientific Radio" fundamental of URSI itself.
Too much of G's scientific sessions are given over to ionospheric physics,
with scant (and and often no) scientific radio content. Most of us in G wear
both geophysical and radio-science hats, but we must make a greater effort
to discipline our URSI contributions toward the latter, and G must make a
greater effort to disallow sessions and contributions lacking radio science.

ICSU can perceive its role vis-a-vis URSI-G more clearly, if G sharpens its
own focus in this direction. As just one example: Our understanding of
ionospheric radio scattering at MF and HF, under conditions near those of
total reflection, is still very incomplete. Emphasis of this topic is
clearly G's responsibility, but it can and should attract the attention of
plasma fusion scientists who can appreciate the analogies arising in their
laboratory experiments. Each field will learn from the other. At present, we
in G seem to know little about whatever scientific union represents
laboratory plasma physicists, thus presenting a challange for ICSU to relate
the two fields.

With regards,
Bill Wright




----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Jarvis" <MJJA@bas.ac.uk>
To: <ursi-commission-g@ips.gov.au>
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 7:27 AM
Subject: [ursi-commission-g] On ICSU dicussions and emerging issues


On ICSU discussions and emerging issues - posted by Martin Jarvis (21.1.03)

On 19 December 2002 the Commission-G chair, Christian Hanuise, sent out a
'Dear Colleagues' request for input regarding the question of the URSI-ICSU
relationship. Due to the paucity of replies received Christian has suggested
that I post my comments here on this Commission G forum. I hope that, if
nothing else, it might provoke some further feedback and discussion:

ICSU discussions on emerging issues.

1. What scientific developments will there be over the next 5-10 years with
a major impact on the development of science and the needs of society?

To be frank here, I don't believe that Commission G, as it currently stands,
will be seen as an area with major impact over the next 5-10 years. Its
development in relation to the needs of society are likely to be in terms
of:
(i) automated global ionospheric prediction from a globally linked array of
ionosondes for the military and for countries who still use HF. In this case
I believe that the societal need is decreasing.
(ii) space weather predictions for mitigation of damage to space technology
and humans in space. This will only become a major issue when the space
industry sees the commercial need for prediction - the evidence at the
moment seems to be that space weather forecasts are not of great interest to
commerce.
(iii) Accuracy and reliability of GPS. This is a growing area with both the
commercial and societal need and, in my view, will be the URSI-G area that
has greatest societal impact over the next 10 years.

2. What kinds of collaboration and coordination are required at
international level in order to ensure these scientific advances are
successfully utilised to the full extent?

All the above areas are ones where single countries tend to stand alone and
be reluctant to be seen to come under the umbrella of another country's
efforts. The coordination should come through truly neutral international
organisations like URSI and ICSU.

3. In the light of its mission, what is the unique role that ICSU could play
in relation to these developments?

See 2 above. One of ICSU's roles is to be interdisciplinary and break the
barriers of specialisation. Here they may have a role in putting ionospheric
research regarding GPS and space weather under a larger umbrella which
matches societal requirements to knowledge-driven science in order to
produce the most efficient use of research funds for the whole world
community.

Looking at the Terms of Reference of the different URSI Commissions it seems
to me that they are somewhat outdated. I personally believe it would be in
URSI's interest to move more towards Commissions based on earth system
science and societal need rather than on the current focussed and somewhat
exclusive technique-based topic areas. For instance ionospheric and space
weather phenomena and techniques could come under a remit of "The expanding
Technosphere" to demonstrate and focus the commission's work towards the
societal needs of the future - e.g. radio and space weather needs of
spacecraft, aerospace planes, nanosatellites and global GPS networks etc.




__________________________________________
Dr. Martin J. Jarvis
Principal Investigator - Geospace Atmosphere Transfer Functions
British Antarctic Survey
Madingley Road
Cambridge CB3 0ET                   TEL: +44 1223 221548
United Kingdom                          FAX: +44 1223 221226

Email: m.jarvis@bas.ac.uk
BAS web site: www.antarctica.ac.uk
__________________________________________

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