Forums

Image Credit: IMCP

OVERVIEW

Context

Dealing with our changing environment is one of the greatest challenges humanity faces in the 21st century. Since the environment is a global whole, its understanding demands a global effort from all countries. This forum will be a contribution to this global effort focusing on the scientific potential of using our planet’s Upper and Middle Atmosphere and Ionosphere layers (IMUA for short) as a detecting screen onto which the different types of natural disasters coming from above (Solar activity and Interplanetary Space) and from below (lower atmosphere, meteorology, climate change and Solid Earth) project signatures that can be used to better monitor, understand, predict and possibly mitigate them. A global, internationally-coordinated Observation System of the IMUA will make it possible to tackle one of the most critical scientific questions of the century: how does energy from the Sun and Earth change our physical environment, how can the resulting change pose a threat to the human society, and how can we mitigate and manage the negative consequences of this change? Designing this system is the goal of the International Meridian Circle Program (IMCP).

Objectives

This forum intends to bring together multidisciplinary key scientists from different countries with the objectives of producing (1) a compelling Science Case for the development of a global-scale, internationally integrated monitoring of major threats on our environment using their effects on our Upper and Middle Atmosphere and Ionosphere (IMUA) and (2) guidelines for a preliminary design of the associated Observation System, referred to as the “International Meridian Circles Project” (IMCP). The output of the FORUM organized at ISSI-BJ will also lead to the publication of a report in the TAIKONG  magazine, which will be understandable to the non-expert and to a peer-reviewed article in an international journal. The two-and-a-half days of this ISSI-Beijing Forum will be devoted to discussing and producing: