E-SWAN Newsletter
PubCom, E-SWAN Newsletter Editor (
Volume 2024 Number 19 - November 7, 2024
E-SWAN YouTube channel - E-SWAN LinkedIn profile
Dear E-SWAN readers,
It is good to meet so many of you again during the ESWW2024 in Coimbra this year. We presented the provisional Annual Report of our activities and budget on Monday. It is my pleasure to welcome the two newly elected members of the Executive Board, Jarda and Michaela. Congratulations with your election! We are looking forward to collaborating with you to improve the E-SWAN service to the European space weather and space climate community. At the same time, thank you very much to Anna and Antonio who are leaving the board. The time and energy you dedicated to serve the community is highly appreciated.
Congratulations also to the laureates of the 2024 Space Weather and Space Climate awards: Prof. Yoshizumi Miyoshi (Int. Kristian Birkeland medal) and Dr. Theodosios Chatzistergos (Int. Alexander Chizhevsky medal). The Int. Baron Marcel Nicolet medal Laureate 2024 is Dr. Carolus J. Schrijver, who sadly passed away one week after he was informed about his award. He will be greatly missed.
There are a lot of E-SWAN activities during the ESWW, including TDMs and the booth.
Thank you all for these initiatives. They are highly appreciated and show that our community is very active.
Enjoy reading this Newsletter.
Stefaan Poedts,
President of E-SWAN
Topical Issues open for submission
"Severe Space Weather Events of May 2024 and Their Impacts", deadline 28 February 2025
Topical Editor-in-Chief (T-EiC):
"Swarm 10-Year Anniversary”, deadline 15 February 2025
Topical Editor-in-Chief (T-EiC):
Georgios Balasis (gbalasis-at-noa.gr), National Observatory of Athens (NOA), Greece
"Fast and slow solar winds: Origin, evolution and Space Weather effects", deadline 31st May 2025
Topical Editors-in-Chief (T-EiC):
Interested in the newest publications? Sign up for e-mail alert
Re-elected
Luca Spogli, INGV, Italy
Ronald van der Linden, ROB, Belgium
Newly elected
Jaroslav Urbář, IAP, CAS, Czech Republic
Michaela Brchnelova, Dutch Defence Academy, Netherlands
Stefaan Poedts, CmPA, KU Leuven, Belgium, will continue as E-SWAN President
Questionnaire on building the future of Space Weather in Europe
Within E-SWAN the SW2P (Space Weather Policies and Plans) working group is mandated to aid an understanding of the international political landscape and propose some plans for the future by discussing relevant documents and collecting the data.
SW2P would like to take the opportunity to ask all members of the Space Weather community to contribute to building the future of Space Weather in Europe. We strongly encourage you to participate in finding more and better ways to promote our activities and to have a broader impact in Europe.
We are convinced that you want to see our community grow and flourish. One small, but critical, step in this direction is to help us understand our competences as well as our familiarity with the decision makers in our profession.
We kindly ask you to spare a few minutes to help us understand how to build a better future for the Space Weather community by responding to the questionnaire: https://eswan.eu/index.php/about-e-swan/workinggroups/space-weather-policies-and-plans-sw2p/e-swan-sw2p---space-weather-policies-and-plans-questionnaire-2024
Series of webinars organized by E-SWAN Sustainability Working Group
The E-SWAN Sustainability Working Group continues its series of webinars on issues related to the environmental impact of the space weather and space climate sector. You are invited to the next ones, which will be on:
Life cycle assessment in practice: The case of Athena X-ray Integral Field Unit
by Andreas Wolnievik (IRAP, Toulouse)
Wednesday, 20th November 2024 at 16:00 CET
How the French Astronomy and Astrophysics community plans to cope with the necessity to reduce the environmental impacts of its activities
by Sylvain Bontemps (Astrophysics Laboratory of Bordeaux)
Wednesday, 4th December 2024 at 16:00 CET
The zoom links are available on the working group's web page:
https://www.eswan.eu/index.php
The E-SWAN Medal Ceremony took place in the Old Church attached to the conference center on the first day of the ESWW in Coimbra (Portugal).
Three medals have been awarded to outstanding space weather and space climate scientists as described below.
The international Kristian Birkeland medalist in 2024: Prof. Yoshizumi Miyoshi
Prof. Yoshizumi Miyoshi is an internationally renowned researcher and an expert scientist in magnetospheric physics and space weather, particularly in the dynamics of the radiation belts and their impact on the atmosphere through energetic electron precipitation.
Prof. Miyoshi obtained his PhD at the Graduate School of Science at Tohoku University in Japan in 2001. He is currently the director of the Center for Integrated Data Science at the Institute of Space-Earth Environmental Research at Nagoya University in Japan. He is also the project scientist of the JAXA’s Geospace Exploration Project Arase. Prof. Miyoshi’s research interests cover a remarkably broad range, as illustrated by the variety of topics in his 431 publications to date with a total of over 10,000 citations.
Prof. Miyoshi is an international leader in the observational study of radiation belts and has made world-class contributions to this topic. His investigations address fundamentally important physical problems by using data from a combination of different satellites and ground-based supporting measurements, and simulations. In a pioneer study to identify the origin of MeV electrons in the outer belt, Prof. Miyoshi has shown that chorus waves can populate the outer belts with MeV electrons. He also demonstrated, for the first time, the energetic electron precipitation by EMIC waves using satellite and ground-based observations, as well as theoretical estimations. The result indicates the importance of considering the pitch angle scattering by EMIC waves on the loss of MeV electrons. Prof. Miyoshi developed a theory that pulsating aurora and energetic electron precipitation are the same phenomena and demonstrated that they contribute to significant ozone destruction in the middle atmosphere. Finally, on a more practical space weather application, he found that Alfvenic fluctuations in high-speed streams originating from solar coronal holes cause continuous chorus wave generation and accelerations of MeV electrons through prolonged substorms. Based on these findings, he established a model and a probabilistic forecast algorithm for MeV electrons in radiation belts.
Prof. Miyoshi has significantly advanced space weather science and forecasting by significantly improving our understanding of the physics of the radiation belts and their impact on the atmosphere, as well as the development of practical space weather applications derived from his research. For these key contributions, Prof. Miyoshi is awarded the 2024 Kristian Birkeland Medal for Space Weather and Space Climate.
The international Alexander Chizhevsky medalist in 2024: Dr. Theodosios Chatzistergos
Dr. Theodosios Chatzistergos is an outstanding young scientist with a truly pan-European profile. He obtained his MSc in Astrophysics, with distinction, from Queen Mary University, London, in 2013, and his PhD in 2017 from Georg-August University of Göttingen, Germany. From 2018 to 2020 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) in Rome, Italy, and he is currently a senior postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, Germany.
Dr. Chatzistergos has been working predominantly in the field of the long-term variability of the Sun, with a substantial contribution to the quality improvement and recalibration of the international Sunspot Number Index and other solar variability indicators, which have been a topic of much interest and debate recently. The key input to studies of long-term solar activity and variability are historical – mainly solar – observations. Unlike the vast richness of data available for studies of the present-day Sun and heliosphere, understanding the physics and the behaviour of the Sun on longer time scales has to rely on data of significantly poorer coverage and quality. Therefore, historical archives, such as sunspot observations or photographs of the Sun at various wavelengths, are of irreplaceable value for understanding the long-term changes in the behaviour of the Sun and Space Climate generally.
The historical data must often be cleaned of artefacts and calibrated before they can be used in a meaningful way. Dr. Chatzistergos has made significant contributions to this effort, unlocking the unique potential of precious historical solar data. The work of Dr. Chatzistergos is thus providing us with historical data sets of inestimable value for understanding past solar activity.
Dr. Chatzistergos has an excellent publication record, with in particular an impressive number of publications of which he is the first author. His publication record also includes many single-author papers, demonstrating that he is fully autonomous in his research. He has made innovative contributions in his research field since the very beginning of his career and receives wide acclaim for his contributions from the scientific community. This wide support for his work was in particular very visible in the enthusiastic support for his nomination for the Chizhevsky Medal.
For all of these reasons, the ESWAN Awards Committee has decided to attribute the 2024 Alexander Chizhevsky Medal to Dr. Theodosios Chatzistergos.
The international Baron Marcel Nicolet medalist in 2024: Dr. Carolus Schrijver (1958-2024)
Dr Carolus J. Schrijver is awarded the Baron Marcel Nicolet Medal for Space Weather and Space Climate in recognition of his long and distinguished history of innovative research, outstanding leadership, and dedicated support of the space weather and space climate community.
Dr Schrijver has an exceptional record of research in heliophysics, as author or co-author of more than 140 peer-reviewed scientific papers and 28 review articles, several of which have graced the cover of internationally known journals such as Science and Nature. He has published highly influential papers covering an unparallel breadth of topics including, e.g., long-term solar and heliospheric activity, solar activity and its implications for climate modelling, historical space weather events using solar, stellar, lunar and terrestrial records, and on the impact of space weather on the electrical power grid. Dr Schriver led the charge for the COSPAR/ILWS roadmap for ‘Understanding space weather to shield society: A global road map for 2015-2025.’
Dr Schriver has also helped lay the foundation of the nascent field of heliophysics. He was PI on instrument teams on several NASA missions, such as Solar Dynamics Observatory and TRACE, that have pushed the frontiers in observational science. He has consistently supported the efforts of NASA’s Heliophysics Science Division to foster the research efforts of the entire community and has demonstrated exceptional leadership and commitment to nurturing the next generation of researchers and educating the news media and public about heliophysics.
The decision to award the Baron Nicolet Medal to Dr Schrijver was made by the committee before his untimely death. It is with great sadness that he could not participate in the Medal Ceremony to receive the medal, but this award is made in recognition of his outstanding achievements in so many areas.
Congratulations!
The E-SWAN Awards Committee
SDO 2025 Science Workshop: A Gathering of the Helio-hive! (24-28 February 2025, Boulder, CO, USA)
The fifteen years since the launch of SDO has seen papers describing wide ranges of science results from this mission. Join us during the maximum of Solar Cycle 25 to discuss what we have learned about the Sun and compare the new cycle and those in the past. To accommodate the interest in multiple research topics, SDO 2025 will include parallel sessions on developments in helioseismology and coronal modeling.
Any research result using SDO data can be submitted as a contribution to the workshop. Invited speakers will introduce 7 themed sessions spanning SDO‘s wide range of research topics:
Solar Internal Dynamics and Structure
From Creation to Emergence: Magnetic Fields of the Sun
Coronal Dynamics: Unveiling the Origins of the Solar Wind
Energetic Outbursts: Deciphering Solar Flares, CMEs, and SEPs
Impacts of Solar Variability on Earth, Other Planets, and Space Weather
Next Horizon: the Future Solar and Heliophysics Missions
Stellar insights from the SDO Observations
There will also be one day of parallel mini-workshops and an EUV calibration workshop.
Registration, abstract submission, and other information about SDO 2025 will be available at http://sdo2025.sdo-workshops.
Please send a message to
Multiple open job offers in a DFG Research Unit Magnetosphere, Ionosphere, Plasmasphere, Thermosphere as a Coupled System (MIPT)
The overarching science objective of the research unit is to better understand how the magnetosphere, ionosphere, plasmasphere, and thermosphere are coupled to each other. The complexity of this system, which covers altitudes from tens to tens of thousands of km and time scales from minutes to decades, requires an interdisciplinary team with specialists in different domains, expertise in modeling and observations, as well as established collaborative ties to the international community.
The Research Unit is planned for 4 years with a possible extension for another 4 years. We offer 6 (postdoc/PhD) positions, one for each project of the Research Unit at 5 Institutions: German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), University of Bonn (Uni Bonn), Technische Universität München (TUM), Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU), and German Aerospace Center (DLR).
All current job announcements and links to online applications can be found at: https://spaceweather.gfz-potsdam.de/mipt-job-center
For additional questions please contact
Multiple open positions at GFZ-Potsdam
Space Physics and Space Weather at GFZ Potsdam, Germany is pleased to announce multiple open positions related to machine learning, numerical modelling, and data analysis.
Our section is working on understanding of the dynamical evolution of the hazardous space radiation environment and developing the tools for specification and prediction of the adverse effects of space environment using models and data assimilation. We study physical processes in the near-Earth space environment and focus on the understanding of fundamental processes responsible for the evolution of space radiation.
For more information about the section, please visit: spaceweather.gfz-potsdam.de
For additional questions please contact
All current job announcements and links to online applications can be found at: spaceweather.gfz-potsdam.de/job-openings
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