by H.G. James

Commission H scientists have been active in a number of working groups (WG) during the triennium. Almost all of these have Commission G leading; the reports therefore are found in the Commission G triennial report.

VLF/ELF Remote Sensing of the Ionosphere and Magnetosphere(VERSIM),URSI/IAGA Joint WG)
CoChairs: M. Parrot(France) and A.J. Smith(U.K.)

This WG serves as a forum for researchers studying the behaviour of the magnetosphere and ionosphere by means of ELF and VLF waves. Since the 1999 URSI General Assembly (GA), the VERSIM WG had a half-day session at IAGA2001, maintained a bibliography and circulated three newsletters. A detailed VERSIM triennial report and other WG information may be read at: http://www.nerc-bas.ac.uk/public/uasd/versim.html

Mode A (Without financial support)

COSPAR Scientific Assembly, Warsaw, Poland, 16-23 July 2000.
Report published in the JUNE 2001 issue of the Radio Science Bulletin(RSB).

First STEP-Results, Applications and Modeling Phase (S-RAMP) Conference, Sapporo, Japan, 2-6 October 2000.
Report received and to be published in the RSB.

Summary:

One of the programs organized by the Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics (SCOSTEP), which followed on from the earlier Solar-Terrestrial Energy Program (STEP), was S-RAMP, the STEP-Results, Applications, and Modeling Phase (S-RAMP) program. S-RAMP is designed to capitalize on the vast data sets and powerful modeling techniques developed under STEP auspices, running from 1998 through 2002. S-RAMP has three main goals:

1. Enable detailed understanding of Sun-Earth coupling mechanisms;

2. Facilitate effective information transfer between experimentalists, theoreticians, and modelers; and

3. Demonstrate the benefits of the STEP endeavour to funding agencies, the media, and the general public.

The first comprehensive conference of the S-RAMP program was held in Sapporo during 2-6 October 2000, at roughly the mid-point of the five-year international program. This conference was convened with goals described above in mind. Besides enabling the effective flow of data and information throughout the wide S-RAMP community, this conference also emphasized the importance of conveying exciting science findings to the general public and to the media as well as to funding agencies. In so doing, the organizers sought to maintain current support and generate new support to enhance scientific programs, cross-disciplinary studies, and the practical applications of this knowledge of the Sun-Earth system to various important areas in society.

The First S-RAMP Conference with over 700 papers presented was held in the Conference Center of the Hotel Royton Sapporo and Sapporo Media Park. Some 580 scientists were registered attendees. There were 19 separate scientific symposia, three tutorial lectures, three workshops, and numerous affiliated side and splinter meetings. Radio scientific topics were discussed in most of the 19 symposia. Commission H interests were particularly present in the following symposia: S12: "ULF and VLF Waves in the Magnetosphere"; S13: "Aurora Dynamics and Plasma Wave Emissions"; S14: "Wave-Particle Interactions at Shocks and Boundary Layers"; S15: "Kinetic Theory and Simulations of Micro and Meso Scale Phenomena"; S19: "Active Experiments and Spacecraft-Environment Interactions".

Int. Space Environment Conference (ISEC) 2001 - Radiation Belt Science and Technology, Queenstown, New Zealand, 23-27 July 2001.
Report published in the MARCH 2002 issue of the RSB .

International Conference on Electromagnetics in Advanced Applications (ICEAA) 2001, Turin, Italy, 10-14 September 2001.
Report published in the MARCH 2002 issue of the RSB.

Mode B (With financial support):

Sources and Scintillations: Refraction and Scattering in Radio Astronomy, Guiyang, China, 17-21 April, 2000 (in collaboration with IAU); EUR 500.
Report published in the DECEMBER 2000 issue of the RSB.

International Conference on Mathematical Methods in Electromagnetic Theory(MMET)'2000, Kharkov, Ukraine, 12-15 September 2000; EUR 560.
Report published in MARCH 2001 issue of the RSB.

Sixth International School for Space Simulations (ISSS-6), Germany, June 2001; EUR 1,000.
Report published in the MARCH 2002 issue of the RSB.

IRI Workshop - Modeling the Low Latitude Ionosphere, Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil, 25-29 June 2001; EUR 300.
Report published in the DECEMBER 2001 issue of the RSB

2001 Asia-Pacific Radio Science Conference (AP-RASC'01), Tokyo, Japan, August 1-4, 2001; EUR 1,000.
Report received and to be published in RSB

Summary:

The AP-RASC’01 was the first Asia-Pacific regional URSI conference to be held between URSI General Assemblies. The objective of this conference was to stimulate and to coordinate the research activities of radio science in the Asia-Pacific area. The main theme of this conference was "Radio Science - Communications, Environment, and Energy".

A total of 599 regular papers were presented (oral: 404, poster 195). 86 sessions were organized. An H-organized union session was entitled "Solar power satellite and wireless power transmission", and 85 other sessions were organized corresponding to each commission of URSI. Other sessions in Commission H were: H1,2: "Plasma as a Complex System"; H3,4: "Observation and Theory of Plasma waves in Space"; H5,6: "Wave propagation, and Remote Sensing of Magnetosphere"; H7,8: "Modeling and Simulations in Space Plasmas".

It has been proposed to hold the next AP-RASC in China in 2004.

La Londe School "Analysis techniques for plasma data as obtained by satellites", Marseille, France, 8-13 October 2001; EUR 1,000.
Report published in the DECEMBER 2001 issue of the RSB.

H.G. James 18 June 2002
Chair, Commission H