Minutes of the Business Meeting of IAGA WG V-OBS
Cape Town, South Africa, August 29, 2017
Agenda
1. Welcome and Agenda Approval
2. Report from WG Chair & Co-Chair
3. Report on the XVIIth Observatory Workshop held in Dourbes, Belgium, in September
2016
4. Information about the XVIIIth Observatory Workshop to be held at the Conrad
Observatory near Vienna, Austria, in June 2018
5. Information and Vote about the XIXth Observatory Workshop
6. Situation of the USGS Geomagnetism Program
7. Resolution Proposals
8. Sessions Proposals for IUGG 2019, Montreal, Canada
9. AOB
1. Welcome and Agenda Approval
WG Co-Chair Jürgen Matzka welcomed the participants and presented the agenda. The agenda wasunanimously approved.
2. Report from WG Chair and Co-Chair
Main activities since the 2015 Business Meeting (BM) in Prague:• The XVIIth IAGA Workshop on Geomagnetic Observatory Instruments, Data Acquisition
and Processing was successfully held in Dourbes in September 2016; see below and IAGA
News No. 53 (December 2016, page 9).
• A call for proposals to host the XVIIIth workshop was issued in July 2016. An ad hoccommittee composed of IAGA officers (Monika Korte, Alan Thomson, Aude Chambodut,
Kusumita Arora, Arnaud Chulliat, Jürgen Matzka) selected the proposal submitted by theConrad Observatory, Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik, Austria (see below).
• A call for proposals to host the XIXth workshop was issued in April 2017, with the intention
that the winning bid be selected by the participants of this BM. A proposal by the Kazan
Federal University was submitted in July 2017 (see below).
• The list of observatories and IAGA codes (available as a Google Fusion Table on the WG
website, https://www.bgs.ac.uk/iaga/vobs/) was updated following a “observatory list please check your observatory” email in September 2016 that generated 33 responses.
Thanks to all the respondents! An “altitude” field was added to the table, and more than one
institution can now be listed in the “responsible institute” field, as recommended by the WG
at the Prague BM. We thank the British Geological Survey for their continuous support of
the WG website, and Susan Macmillan for her help in updating the Fusion Table. Similar“please check your observatory” emails will be regularly (e.g. annually) sent in the future.
o 87 observatories have “Uncertain” status; please let us know if you haveinformation on them.
• Status of observatories - new IAGA codes:
o Alexandrovka, ALX (status preliminary, code obtained November 2016)o Cheongyang-Gun, CYG (status open, IMO)o Icheon, ICH (status preliminary, code obtained August 2015)o Lonjsko Polje, LON (status open, IMO, code obtained July 2015)
o Saint Petersburg, SPG (status open, IMO)1•o 11 observatories have “Preliminary” status since before the last BM in 2015. Pleaseconsider submitting your data to a WDC and/or applying for INTERMAGNET
membership, so that observatory status can be changed to “Open”.
News from INTERMAGNET (S. Flower, new Chair of Operations Committee)o Plans to further increase communication with communityo A new metadata system for geomagnetic observatories is under development thatwill also service EPOSo The continuation of the DVD with annual definitive INTERMAGNET data is indiscussion, it might be replaced by other means of data distributiono Introduction of DOIs is discussedo Latency of data availability to users shall be decreasedo INTERMAGNET software repository can be found on intermagnet.org/publicationsoftware/software-eng.php. For contributions, please mail to Flower, Simon M.
smf@bgs.ac.uk

3. Report on the XVIIth Observatory Workshop held in Dourbes, Belgium, in September
2016Jean Rasson reported on the workshop, which was attended by 87 participants from 37 countries (21out of Europe). Fifty instruments were brought for comparison, and results were presented at theBM. Workshop proceedings will be published in a peer-reviewed inter-journal special issue, “The
Earth’s magnetic field: measurements, data, and applications from ground observations”, ofGeoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems (GI) and Annales Geophysicae(ANGEO). A more detailed report is available at http://www.iagaaiga.org/data/uploads/pdf/newsletter/iaganews_53.pdf
4. Information about the XVIIIth Observatory Workshop to be held at the Conrad
Observatory near Vienna, Austria, in June 2018
Barbara Leichter provided the following information about the upcoming workshop:• The workshop website is now online, www.iaga-workshop.org, and the first circular wasreleased in July.
• The workshop will be held from June 24th to 29th, 2018, at the observatory site, and will be
preceded by a summer school on June 21st to 24th.
• Pillars for variometer and DI-flux intercomparison are in the observatory tunnel (6° C).
• There will be oral and poster presentations.
• MagNetE meeting and INTERMAGNET meeting will be co-hosted.
5. Information and Vote about the XIXth Observatory Workshop
A proposal to host the workshop by the Kazan Federal University was presented by AnatolySoloviev (Geophysical Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences). The following information
was provided:• Kazan geomagnetic observatory (founded in 1827) located within Volga-Kama State
Natural Reserve, 30 km north-west of Kazan• Four pillars exist in the absolute house as well as four pillars in an additional pavilion• Conference halls and meeting rooms are available at Kazan Federal University• Transport from Moscow by 90 minutes flights or 12 h train• Preferable date is beginning of June, other possibilities in July or September 2020
• Registration fee (except accommodation) approx. 500 EUR
The Kazan proposal was selected by unanimous vote.

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6. Situation of the USGS Geomagnetism Program• Presidential budget proposal suggested complete budget cut• House of Representatives has restored budget• Senate has made no decision yet and both must agree; President has to sign final budget• All observatories operational at the moment• This causes uncertainties for the long-term budget and operations of the observatories andaccompanying science program
7. Resolution Proposals
The following resolution was proposed and discussed during the BM:• IAGA, considering the value of continuity in high-quality, ground-based magnetic
observations to increase our knowledge of Earth dynamics and space weather, considering
the importance of such observations and related research in monitoring, modeling andforecasting extreme space weather events that could potentially disrupt the world economy
and cost billions of dollars, considering the critical importance of such observations indeveloping global reference models such as the International Geomagnetic Reference Field,
used in navigation (airborne, marine), satellite orientation, directional drilling and numerous
other applications, noting that the United States presidential budget for Fiscal Year 2018has proposed to eliminate the USGS Geomagnetism program, noting that most countries
with advanced economies support an observational, research-based geomagnetism program,urges the United States government to continue funding permanent, ground-based magneticobservations in the United States and its territories, as well as observation-based research ingeomagnetism.
The resolution was unanimously agreed by the BM participants and was passed to the Chair ofDivision V for further consideration.
Note added after the meeting: a slightly modified version of this resolution was eventually adopted
by the IAGA Executive Committee and published on the IAGA website (http://www.iaga-aiga.org).
8. Session Proposals for IUGG 2019, Montreal, Canada• Geomagnetic observatories: Current developments and integration into multidisciplinary
Earth observation networks (A. Morschhauser, A. Gonsette, NN)• Observation and interpretation of rapid secular variation fluctuations (with V-MOD, Div. I)(V. Lesur, I. Wardinski, NN)• Geomagnetic observations for space science and space weather applications (with V-DATand/or Div. IV and Div. V and IAGA Interdivisional Commission on Space Weather and/orWG VI) (E. Clarke, NN)
9. AOB• Delegates were informed that the next IAGA-IASPE meeting will be held in Lisbon or inHyderabad.
Jürgen Matzka thanked the participants for attending.

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