International SCOSTEP Program / Theme 3

1. Introduction
2. Overview: working groups and projects
3. Reports from individual projects
4. Other reports
5. Discussion on Theme 3 structure
6. Future meetings
7. Miscellaneous

A total of 22 scientists participated in the meeting. Reports on the following projects were presented:

• Alan Manson (vortices)
• William Ward (tides)
• Dave Fritts (turbulence and gravity waves)
• Marty Mlynczak (ozone)
• Franz-Josef Luebken (ice layers)

If you would like to receive a copy of these reports, please contact the authors.

The list of projects was discussed and revisited according to new ideas and proposals. The actual list of projects with some changes added after the meeting is as follows:

1. Planetary and gravity wave influences upon the winter polar vortices (0-100 km) coordinator: Alan Manson
2. A global observing campaign to characterize tides and their influence from the troposphere to the thermosphere coordinator: William Ward
3. Gravity waves and turbulence coordinators: Dave Fritts, Nikolai Gavrilov
4. Solar influence on minor constituents and layers at the extra-tropical summer mesopause coordinators: Franz-Josef Luebken, Ulf-Peter Hoppe, Scott Bailey
5. Ozone - how well do we really understand it ? coordinators: Marty Mlynczak, Martin Dameris
6. Equatorial Atmosphere coupling processes coordinators: Mamoru Yamamotu, Hisao Takahashi, Subramanian Gurubaran
7. Coupling effects in the electrodynamics at the low latitude ionosphere Coordinators: Archana Bhattacharyya, Art Richmond, Hermann Luehr

• Some of the projects have installed a steering committee with several scientists participating in coordination etc.
• Project 6 has increased its scope and now includes four activities, namely
  1. CPEA (coupling processes in the equatorial atmosphere)
  2. Mesosphere-ionosphere coupling, formation of plasma bubbles
  3. Low latitude radar network for investigation of dynamical processes in the mesosphere-lower thermosphere region
  4. INTAR (see below)
• INTAR (international network on tropical atmosphere radars) was proposed for Theme 3 prior to the meeting. This activity is considered an important input to our Theme. It was suggested that the speaker of INTAR contacts the coordinators of project no. 6 to incorporate INTAR within this project.
• There is a new project (No. 7) on electrodynamics in the equatorial ionosphere. Please contact the coordinators for more details. A similar activity in the high latitude is wanted, but not yet planned. The same is true for the global electrical circuit including associated phenomena (sprites etc.)
• Several campaigns are active or planned within the projects listed above. Please contact the coordinators for more details.

The role of the working groups (WG) was discussed. It was questioned wether we still need working groups since most of the activity is generated within the projects, not within WG. After some discussion it was agreed to keep working groups for the time being and to revisit its relevance at the next meetings.

Several meetings and workshops with Theme 3 related topics will take place or in the planning phase in the next years. A tentative and not complete list follows.

• 05-09 Dec 2005: AGU San Francisco
• 06-11 March 2006: SCOSTEP Rio de Janeiro
• 02-07 April 2006: EGU Vienna
• 15-16 May 2006: Ice Layer Workshop; Kuehlungsborn
• 16-23 July 2006: COSPAR in Beijing
• 18-22 Sept 2006: Coupling meeting; Varna (Bulgaria)
• 26-29 Sept 2006: SPARC SSG meeting in Reading
• 11-15 Dec 2006: AGU San Francisco
• September 2007: Theme 3 meeting (t.b.d.)
• Furthermore, two workshops are planned on tides (place and time: t.b.d.)

Franz-Josef Luebken and Joan Alexander July 26, 2005