The IUGG Electronic Journal

Volume 4 No. 3 (March 1, 2004)

This short, informal newsletter is intended to keep IUGG Member National Committees informed about the activities of the IUGG Associations, and actions of the IUGG Secretariat. Past issues are posted on the IUGG Web site. Please forward this message to those who will benefit from the information. Your comments are welcome.

Contents

  1. IUGG General Assembly in 2007
  2. Short Report of the ICSU Unions Meeting
  3. Commission on Mathematical Geophysics (CMG) Meeting Announced
  4. IUGG Appointees to ICSU Panels
  5. IUGG-Related Meetings Occurring during March - May 2004

1. IUGG General Assembly in 2007

The XXIV IUGG General Assembly will be held in Perugia, Italy from July 2-13, 2007. These dates were agreed at a meeting on February 12-13 in Perugia hosted by the Chair of the Local Organizing Committee, Dr. Lucio Ubertini. To support the General Assembly, the LOC has established an European Committee, chaired by Prof. Fernando Sanso, that is already planning special events and seeking funding to make the 2007 General Assembly an extraordinary success. More recently, IUGG President Uri Shamir announced the appointment of the Chair of the GA2007 Scientific Programme Committee: Prof. Paola Malanotte-Rizzoli. Prof. Rizzoli, now teaching in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a physical oceanographer and the immediate past President of the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO).


2. Short Report of the ICSU Unions Meeting

IUGG President Dr. Uri Shamir and Secretary-General Dr. Jo Ann Joselyn attended a meeting in Paris on February 9-10 of the scientific unions that are members of ICSU. Twenty-five of the 27 member Unions sent representatives to the meeting that was held in rooms within the beautiful and historic French Académie des Sciences. Agenda items included discussion of development of an ICSU strategic plan for 2006-2012, ICSU-UNESCO collaboration, and updates on the work in progress on ICSU resolutions passed at their 2002 General Assembly.

Presentations were made on the International Polar Year by C. Rapley, and the International Year of Planet Earth by E. DeMulder (including information presented by Dr. M. Kuhn, Chair of the IUGG IGY+50 Committee). The date and place of the ICSU 28th General Assembly were announced (Shanghai and Suzhou, China, 16-22 October 2005). ICSU has an electronic newsletter, Insight, that can be downloaded from their web site: http://www.icsu.org.

For IUGG, the opportunity to meet with and network with other Unions proved very valuable. A separate meeting of the officers of the Geo-Unions (IUGG plus the International Union of Geological Sciences - IUGS, the International Geographical Union - IGU, and the International Union of Soil Sciences - IUSS) was held before the ICSU meeting, and a meeting of the consortium of Unions that are working together on an initiative on Science for Health and Well-Being (also attended by P. Hubert for IAHS) was held after the ICSU meeting. We also met with IUGS separately regarding possible actions with regard to the International Lithosphere Programme, and with the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the Union of Radio Science International (URSI) regarding the Federation of Astronomical and Geophysical Data Analysis Services (FAGS). We look forward to continuing collaborations with these and other Unions, especially the International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.


3. Commission on Mathematical Geophysics (CMG) Meeting Announced

The 25th IUGG Conference on Mathematical Geophysics will be held June 16-18, 2004, at Columbia University, New York, New York, USA. The theme is Frontiers in Theoretical Earth Science. Contributions in new problems, mathematical methods, and observations in need of theoretical understanding are sought that are relevant to any aspect of Earth sciences, at all spatial and temporal scales, ranging from the core and mantle to the surface, oceans, and atmosphere.

Information regarding the program, registration, accommodation, etc., will be available at http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~mspeig/CMG2004.


4. IUGG Appointees to ICSU Panels

IUGG Bureau members have recently been named to advisory committees to the International Council of Science (ICSU). Dr. Harsh Gupta has agreed to serve on the ad hoc Expert Panel on Priority Area Assessment on Capacity Building in Science, and Dr. Uri Shamir, who recently completed service on the CSPR Assessment Panel on Environment and its Relation to Sustainable Development, has agreed to serve on an ad hoc Committee on Membership Issues.


5. IUGG-Related Meetings Occurring during March - May 2004

A calendar of meetings of interest to IUGG disciplines (especially those organized by IUGG Associations) is posted on the IUGG Web Site. Specific information about these meetings can be found there. Individual Associations also list more meetings on their web sites appropriate to their disciplines.

March 1-6, 2004
ICSU/WMO, Moscow, Russia, WCRP-JSC Meeting

March 8-10, 2004
ESA/IAG, Frascati (Rome), Italy, 2nd International GOCE User Workshop

March 22-24, 2004
ICSU, Bonn, Germany, 11th SC-IHDP Meeting

April 13-17, 2004
IUTAM, Muizenberg, Cape Town, South Africa, Workshop on Capacity Building in the Mathematical Sciences

April 20-23
IAG, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, Chandler Wobble Workshop

April 25-30
EGU, Nice, France, EGU 1st General Assembly

May 17-21
AGU/CGU, Montreal, Canada, Joint Meeting of the American and Canadian Geophysical Unions

May 25-29
IAHS, Ohrid, FY Repub. Macedonia, Conference on Water Observation and Information System for Decision Support (BALWOIS)

May 27-June 2
SCOSTEP, Taipei, Taiwan, China, 11th International Symposium on Equatorial Aeronomy

June 4-5
IAHS/UNESCO, Paris, France, 7th Kovacs Colloquium / 7ème Colloque Kovacs Scales in Hydrology and Water Management Echelles en hydrologie et gestion de l'eau


End of IUGG Electronic Journal Volume 4 Number 3 (March 1, 2004)
J. A. Joselyn, Secretary General  [ http://www.IUGG.org ]
jjoselyn@cires.colorado.edu, fax:  1 303 497 3645.