The IUGG Electronic JournalVolume 5 No. 1 (January 1, 2005)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. But first, more information on the Indian Ocean Tsunami Disasters. Dr. V.K. Gusiakov (Russia) has assembled the initial geophysical information related to the December 26, 2004 earthquake and tsunami event and has made it available at the following URL: http://tsun.sscc.ru/tsulab/20041226.htm. Temporarily, until more sophisticated Internet resource is established, this will be a joint IUGG/TC-ITIC-ICG/ITSU site dedicated to this event. The site will be upgraded as soon as new information becomes available. Contents
Thanks to all of the Adhering Body National Committees and the Associations for helping to update the information in the IUGG Yearbook! Assistant Secretary General Katina Rogers completed the master copy of the 2005 Yearbook on 9 December. It is posted on the IUGG Website (http://www.IUGG.org), and will be printed and distributed by the end of January. During 2005, updates to addresses and other information in the Yearbook should be sent to the Secretariat (secretariat@iugg.org) as soon as they are known; our goal is to update the Web copy of the Yearbook periodically throughout the year. Thanks also to the 2003 IUGG General Assembly Local Organizing Committee members Kiyoshi Suyehiro and Masataka Kinoshita, for their continuing commitment to IUGG to publish the Comptes Rendus. Copies have now been mailed to all registrants at the Sapporo Assembly, and the entire publication can be downloaded from the IUGG web site. We are grateful for their work to produce this record of the Proceedings of the General Assembly. Best Wishes to everyone for a healthy and prosperous New Year! 2. Initiatives selected for IUGG support in 2005 At the 1999 General Assembly, an "opportunity fund" was established in the IUGG budget to support proposals for inter-Association initiatives that particularly benefit developing countries. For 2005, a total of $25,000 was awarded to the four new projects and their sponsors, listed below. Formulation Activities of the Electronic Geophysical Year (eGY). IAGA, endorsed as a Union initiative by the IUGG Executive Committee in September 2004. Distribution of the proceedings of the 2003 IUGG Tsunami Symposium to tsunami warning centers in countries around the Pacific. Tsunami Commission (IASPEI/IAPSO/IAVCEI) Development of a comprehensive historical earthquake and tsunami database for the South-West Pacific. GeoRisk Commission WMO/GEWEX (Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment) Working Group support. IAHS/IAMAS Planning for the International Year of Planet Earth is progressing. Brochures are now available for several of the science themes (Health, Hazards, Climate, Resources, and Deep Earth), and their Outreach Programme; these can be downloaded from http://www.esfs.org. The brochures speak of invitations to geoscientists to propose projects to be conducted within the framework of the International Year, although these forms are not yet ready. Brochures are in progress for the other science themes (Megacities, Ocean, and Groundwater), and two additional themes are under development (Soils, and Life). The second issue of EGY News (November 2004) has been released. It contains information articles such as eGY nomenclature, reports of past planning meetings, and notices of future meetings. It can be downloaded from http://www.egy.org or upon request, new issues can be e-mailed automatically. It is agreed that studies of the coupled Sun-Earth system within the International Heliospheric Year (IHY) initiative will be a focus of annual basic science workshops under the auspices of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. The IHY North American Community Science Planning Workshop will be held in Boulder, Colorado USA, 16-18 February 2005. Details about the meeting are posted at http://ihy.gsfc.nasa.gov/events/feb2005_workshop.shtml. 4. New Officers named for the Union Commission on GeoRisk At the recent meeting in Hyderabad, India, of the Union Commission on Geophysical Risk and Sustainability (GeoRisk), the following new officers began their work. President: Alik Ismail-Zadeh, Geophysical Institute, University of Karlsruhe, Germany, and the International Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics, Moscow, Russia Secretary General: Gerd Tetzlaff, Institute of Meteorology, University of Leipzig, Germany Vice-Presidents: Treasurer: Paula Dunbar, National Geophysical Data Center, USA. The Past President and Honorary Commission Member is Tom Beer, CSIRO Environmental Risk Network, AUSTRALIA; and Commission Members are Hermann Drewes (IAG), Harsh Gupta (IUGG Bureau), Viacheslav Gusiakov (Tsunami Commission), Kosuke Heki (IAG), A.W. Jayawardena (IAHS), Susan McLean (IAGA), Evgeny Kontar (IAPSO), Vladimir Kossobokov (IASPEI), Uri Shamir (IUGG President), and Zhongliang Wu (IASPEI). The GeoRisk Webmaster is Dmitry Krupsky (Russia). 5. Report of the SCOR General Meeting The XXVIth General Meeting of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) was held 27-30 September 2004 at the CNR-Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR) in Venice, Italy. Michael MacCracken and Paola Rizzoli attended on behalf of IUGG. Actions taken include the following. 1. Bjørn Sundby (Canada) was elected president of SCOR for a four-year term. Victor Akulichev (Russia) began a two-year term as a SCOR Vice-President and Ilana Wainer (Brazil) was reappointed as a Co-opted Member of the Executive Committee for the period 2004-2006. The other Co-opted Member position will be left vacant for now. 2. Working groups are the primary means through which SCOR contributes to advancing understanding of the ocean. Two working groups were disbanded after completing their tasks; 6 working groups were continued, two new working groups were approved. The 2005 call for WG proposals will emphasize physical oceanography and marine geology and geophysics activities. 3. SCOR will coordinate the participation of SCOR co-sponsored and SCOR-affiliated projects for the International Polar Year (IPY), and will offer assistance in future planning. 4. SCOR is continuing its efforts to strengthen the capabilities and involvement of ocean research groups in the developing world. One particular activity is to encourage formation of Regional Graduate Schools of Oceanography. 5. The 2005 meeting of the SCOR Executive Committee will be held in Cairns, Australia during the week following the joint IAGA/IAPSO/IABO meeting in late August. 6. The 2006 SCOR General Assembly will be held in Chile. A committee was formed to plan SCOR's 50th Anniversary meeting in 2008 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where the first SCOR meeting was held. [ This news article was extracted from the liaison report by M. MacCracken ] 6. The State of the Planet: Frontiers and Challenges in Geophysics This book, a new release by the American Geophysical Union, is derived from the prestigious Union Symposia at the 2003 (Sapporo) IUGG General Assembly. Edited by R.S.J. Sparks and C.J. Hawkesworth, this volume contains 30 papers by leading scientists in IUGG disciplines and is written for specialists and non-specialists alike. The list price is $70; AGU members receive a discount. To order, either follow the directions on the AGU website (http://www.agu.org) under Publications, or send an e-mail message to orders@agu.org. IUGG will purchase 100 copies to be distributed by IAVCEI to learning institutions in the developing world. 7. IUGG-Related Meetings Occurring during January - March 2005 A calendar of meetings of interest to IUGG disciplines (especially those organized or sponsored by IUGG Associations) is posted on the IUGG Web Site [www.IUGG.org]. Specific information about these meetings, including web links, can be found there. Individual Associations also list more meetings on their web sites appropriate to their disciplines. January 13 - January 15, 2005 January 17 - January 23, 2005 January 18 - January 22, 2005 January 31 - February 5, 2005 February 7 - February 11, 2005
February 23 - February 25, 2005 March 15 - March 17, 2005 March 17 - March 19, 2005 March 21 - March 23, 2005 End of IUGG Electronic Journal Volume 5 Number 1 (January 1, 2005) |
