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Community honours, such as those bestowed by professional scientific societies like the American Geophysical Union (AGU) are an important element of both individual career advancement and contributes to the historical record of scientific progress. The process by which honours are bestowed is not widely shared amongst the community. The purpose of this article is to share the recent experiences of several members of the AGU Space Physics and Aeronomy (SPA) Fellows committee. We outline the criteria for selection, the evaluation process, difficulties encountered by the committee, and steps taken to mitigate these difficulties. Of particular note is the impact of implicit bias in the award system. Steps could be taken by the awarding scientific societies to reduce the impact of these biases, but in the meantime individual award committees can employ some of the strategies we outline in this article. By sharing our experiences, we hope to improve the process of granting awards and honours for the scientists putting together award nominations, future committee members, and the scientific societies granting these awards. 

Abstract Interplanetary (IP) shocks are perturbations observed in the solar wind. IP shocks correlate well with solar activity, being more numerous during times of high sunspot numbers. Earth‐bound IP shocks cause many space weather effects that are promptly observed in geospace and on the ground. Such effects can pose considerable threats to human assets in space and on the ground, including satellites in the upper atmosphere and power infrastructure. Thus, it is of great interest to the space weather community to (a) keep an accurate catalog of shocks observed near Earth, and (b) be able to forecast shock occurrence as a function of the solar cycle (SC). In this work, we use a supervised machine learning regression model to predict the number of shocks expected in SC25 using three previously published sunspot predictions for the same cycle. We predict shock counts to be around 275 ± 10, which is ∼47% higher than the shock occurrence in SC24 (187 ± 8), but still smaller than the shock occurrence in SC23 (343 ± 12). With the perspective of having more IP shocks on the horizon for SC25, we briefly discuss many opportunities in space weather research for the remainder years of SC25. The next decade or so will bring unprecedented opportunities for research and forecasting effects in the solar wind, magnetosphere, ionosphere, and on the ground. As a result, we predict SC25 will offer excellent opportunities for shock occurrences and data availability for conducting space weather research and forecasting. 

Abstract Geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) at middle latitudes have received increased attention after reported power grid disruptions due to geomagnetic disturbances. However, quantifying the risk to the electric power grid at middle latitudes is difficult without understanding how the GIC sensors respond to geomagnetic activity on a daily basis. Therefore, in this study the question “Do measured GICs have distinguishable and quantifiable long‐period and short‐period characteristics?” is addressed. The study focuses on the long‐term variability of measured GIC, and establishes the extent to which the variability relates to quiet‐time geomagnetic activity. GIC quiet‐day curves (QDCs) are computed from measured data for each GIC node, covering all four seasons, and then compared with the seasonal variability of thermosphere‐ionosphere‐electrodynamics general circulation model (TIE‐GCM)‐simulated neutral wind and height‐integrated current density. The results show strong evidence that the middle‐latitude nodes routinely respond to the tidal‐driven Sq variation, with a local time and seasonal dependence on the direction of the ionospheric currents, which is specific to each node. The strong dependence of GICs on the Sq currents demonstrates that the GIC QDCs may be employed as a robust baseline from which to quantify the significance of GICs during geomagnetically active times and to isolate those variations to study independently. The QDC‐based significance score computed in this study provides power utilities with a node‐specific measure of the geomagnetic significance of a given GIC observation. Finally, this study shows that the power grid acts as a giant sensor that may detect ionospheric current systems. 

The space physics community continues to grow and become both more interdisciplinary and more intertwined with commercial and government operations. This has created a need for a framework to easily identify what projects can be used for specific applications and how close the tool is to routine autonomous or on-demand implementation and operation. We propose the Application Usability Level (AUL) framework and publicizing AULs to help the community quantify the progress of successful applications, metrics, and validation efforts. This framework will also aid the scientific community by supplying the type of information needed to build off of previously published work and publicizing the applications and requirements needed by the user communities. In this paper, we define the AUL framework, outline the milestones required for progression to higher AULs, and provide example projects utilizing the AUL framework. This work has been completed as part of the activities of the Assessment of Understanding and Quantifying Progress working group which is part of the International Forum for Space Weather Capabilities Assessment.