Present:
Chair: Glenn Orton
Permanent Committee Members: Reta Beebe, Imke de Pater, Torrence Johnson
Rotating Committee Members: none but Theirry Fouchet, who substituted for Pierre Drossart, who replaced Catherine de Bergh on the committee in 2001.
Team Leaders: Agustin Sanchez-Lavega (atmospheres), Takehito Sato (auroras, substituting for Jack Connerney) John Spencer (Io, substituting for Bob Howell)
At-large invitees: Kathy Rages (Neptune atmosphere), Mark Hofstadter (Uranus atmosphere), Henry Roe (Titan), Alan Tokunaga (IRTF director)
Note that permanent members Chris Russell and Bob West are still interested in the IOPW but were unable to make the DPS this year. Discipline leaders Julie Moses (laboratory support), Patrick Galopeau (magnetospheres/radio emission), Jack Connerney (aurora), and Bob Howell (Io) were unable to be at the DPS; substitutes were designated for the latter two, as noted above. De Pater represented magnetosphere/radio interests. Discipline leader Melissa McGrath (Io torus) and rotating member De Bergh had a DPS Committee meeting scheduled simultaneously.
The committee will seek substitutes for rotating members S. Miller, B. Ryabov, T. Asada, and F. Moreno, noting that N. Thomas is still probably interested and was simply unable to come to the DPS this year. DePater also noted that Galopeau was an active Discipline leader, despite his absence at the DPS.
Beebe suggested sending email to permanent members Mike Belton, Don Hunten, and David Morrison asking whether they are still interested - dropping them if they do not respond within a specified time. Orton will follow through and make the time interval one month. [Glenn's postscript: Don Hunten returned the email to say he was still interested.]
Moses and McGrath would be happy to step down from their Discipline lead positions, but there are no heirs-apparent for either. It was suggested that Orton ask Connerney whether he was still interested in continuing on as the aurora Discipline leader, with John Clark suggested as a replacement if he wanted to 'retire'. The continuing need for an Io torus group was justified by Johnson; he suggested that the Earth-based observations that were used to supplement Galileo observations related to the Io torus be made available in a reasonable form for to pass on to future users by people active in this Discipline. Maarten Roos-Serote was suggested as a substitute for de Bergh in a rotating committee membership, although she was nominally replaced by Pierre Drossart who could not make it to the DPS this year.
John Spencer noted that Bob Howell was interested in stepping down as the leader of the Satellites Discipline. [Glenn's postscript: After an email exchange between them, they agreed to ask Franck Marchis to take over the Discipline and are awaiting his reply.]
The expansion last year of the IJW to the IOPW made it clear that we want to encourage communication by various researchers in the time-variable changes in Uranus and Neptune. To some extent, Heidi Hammel's continuing work on gathering people working on this topic presaged the development of the IOPW in this direction. She was nominated by those present representing Uranus and Neptune work to head a subdiscipline of the Atmospheres Discipline, at least for the time being. This group would likely also include K. Baines, S. Gulkis, W. Lockwood, and M. Klein. Baines and Gulkis would have been present at this meeting, but kept away when the Chair expressed the need to keep the meeting at a manageable size.
Henry Roe represented a group working on time-variable phenomena in Titan, including new and great AO spectral images from Gemini and Keck. This group would be important to include as a matter of Cassini support, and would likely to include Athena Coustenis, Caitlin Griffith, de Pater, and Mike Brown, in addition to Henry himself (who is transferring to Caltech from U. C. Berkeley by the start of CY 2003). He agreed to talk with Brown about the best way to approach communicating information, with a separate web site or newsletter more likely than being subsumed into the atmospheres or Io working group (depending on whether changes were atmospheric or surficial).
As planetary rings do not present many opportunities for expression of time-variable characteristics, it was decided that there was no need for a separate Rings Discipline. On the other hand, seeing that ring support will important for the Cassini mission, the Committee recommended that Orton speak with D. Matson, Cassini project scientist, and request that Matson, at the upcoming PSG meeting, ask Cassini Discipline leaders what earth-based support would be most useful to their respective teams. Linda Spilker was suggested as a good person to coordinate these efforts, certainly for the case of ring science. [Orton gave that message to Linda and met quickly with Matson, arranging to speak with him in a little more detail on Monday, Oct. 21, just before the PSG.] Such support, for example, would consist of providing earth-based observers with knowledge of the Titan encounter dates in order tosupplement the Cassini observational sequence of cloud variability. Ralph Lorentz was mentioned as a possible capable contact person to coordinate Titan observations by Cassini and ground-based observers.
It was also suggested that the Cassini project might generate letters to telescope allocation committees (or funding proposal review committees) that advocate on behalf of particularly useful earth-based support projects, continuing a practice of the Galileo project. Letters sent to Tokunaga requesting specific missions support is helpful when he makes the case for IRTF mission support, and he can use it to encourage the Telescope Allocation Committee to provide appropriate time for mission support.
Spencer also noted that there is an existing Triton variability web site, and he suggested that the Satellites Discipline web page contain a link to it.