MIST

Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial

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2026 MIST Council Election Results

It is our pleasure to announce the results of the latest MIST Council Election.

  • Samuel Wharton (University of Leicester) is elected for a 3 year term as a MIST Councillor
  • Jewel Abbey Relampagos (Lancaster University) is elected for a 1 year term as the MIST Student Representative

In addition, due to concerns from the community regarding the ongoing UKRI/STFC funding situation, MIST Council have also decided to charter Mark Lester (University of Leicester) as an additional councillor to inform and steer the council in matters related to this specific brief, as set out in Article 4.5 of the MIST Charter.

We would like to congratulate everyone on their new roles. The full composition of Council can be found on the MIST website (https://www.mist.ac.uk/community/mist-council). We would like to thank all the candidates for putting themselves forward and everyone who took part in the voting. We received votes from 132 people which represents a turnout of 21.5% of people registered to receive the MIST emailing list.

Finally, MIST Council would like to extend their thanks and gratitude to our outgoing members: Fiona Ball and Georgios Nicolaou. We would also like to say a special thank you to Andy Smith who was co-opted to be on MIST council while Rosie Johnson was on maternity leave, thank you for all of your hard work.

Open Letter Ready For Signatories

Protect MIST Science! Sign the MIST Community Open Letter on the STFC funding cuts!

https://sites.google.com/view/uk-mist-community-open-letter

 

Statement from MIST Council regarding the STFC Funding Situation

Statement from MIST Council regarding the STFC Funding Situation

MIST Council is deeply concerned by the ongoing STFC funding uncertainty and its impact on our community and beyond.

The current combination of prospective delayed and reduced funding, together with already volatile financial situations at universities across the UK, is placing significant strain on research groups. In some cases, institutions may be unable to support researchers through gaps between projects, increasing precarity across the community and adding significant pressure on early-career researchers.

We are concerned that continued uncertainty risks accelerating a brain drain from the UK, as skilled researchers reconsider their future in a system offering limited stability. The loss of expertise at any career stage would have lasting consequences for UK space science.

 

What is going on?

For those that are unaware of the situation, it is complex and evolving. We suggest the following sources to get up to speed on the current developments.

https://www.sciencecampaign.org.uk/analysis-and-publications/detail/what-is-happening-with-ukri-funding-and-the-stfc-cuts/

https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/proposed-budget-cuts-catastrophe-uk-astronomy

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2514481-physicists-warn-of-catastrophic-impact-from-uk-science-cuts/

 

What are we doing about it?

Behind the scenes, MIST Council is actively engaging with relevant parties to understand the scale of the challenge and to identify constructive ways forward.

  • We are seeking seasoned members of the community to join MIST Council on a task force to help develop options and represent the needs of our community. If you would like to be involved, please reach out to us via the MIST Council email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) by the end of this week (13th February 2026).
  • In addition to the task force, we want to provide an open forum for discussion and collective input among all members of the wider MIST community. We are exploring options and will be in touch as soon as possible with further details.
  • We believe in working together in the face of the current challenges and we are collaborating with UKSP and others to strive for a fair and positive outcome for all. We are reaching out to members of the SSAP (Solar System Advisory Panel) to explore the hosting of a community town hall meeting, like the one already being organised by the AAP (Astronomy Advisory Panel), to provide an open forum for discussion and collective input.

 

What can you do to help?

There are several open letters representing people in various career stages that have been made available to sign. We encourage you to read the relevant letter(s) and to sign them if you support them:

The Royal Astronomical Society are also urging Fellows to lobby their MPs against the cuts, and have included a template letter that can be used to do so:
https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/ras-fellows-urged-lobby-against-unprecedented-cuts

 

MIST Council will continue to advocate for transparency, stability, and funding structures that recognise both the long-term nature of our science and the people who deliver it.
We thank you for your continued support in this period of uncertainty.

 

Please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you have further suggestions.
MIST Council

Announcement of New MIST Council 2025

We are very pleased to announce the following members of the community have been elected to MIST Council:

  • Gemma Bower (University of Leicester), MIST Councillor
  • Tom Elsden (University of St Andrews), MIST Councillor
  • Cameron Patterson (Lancaster University), MIST Councillor
  • Fiona Ball (University of Southampton), Student Representative

They will begin their terms in July 2025.

We thank outgoing MIST Council members: Maria Walach, Chiara Lazzeri and Emma Woodfield. Andy Smith will remain on council a little longer as a co-opted member to cover Rosie Johnson's maternity leave.

The current composition of Council can be found on our website (https://www.mist.ac.uk/community/mist-council).

Announcement of New MIST Councillors.

We are very pleased to announce the following members of the community have been elected unopposed to MIST Council:

  • Rosie Johnson (Aberystwyth University), MIST Councillor
  • Matthew Brown (University of Birmingham), MIST Councillor
  • Chiara Lazzeri (MSSL, UCL), Student Representative

Rosie, Matthew, and Chiara will begin their terms in July. This will coincide with Jasmine Kaur Sandhu, Beatriz Sanchez-Cano, and Sophie Maguire outgoing as Councillors.

The current composition of Council can be found on our website, and this will be amended in July to reflect this announcement (https://www.mist.ac.uk/community/mist-council).

Variation of Geomagnetic Index Empirical Distribution and Burst Statistics Across Successive Solar Cycles

By Aisling Bergin (University of Warwick)

Geomagnetic indices, based on magnetic field observations at the Earth's surface, provide almost continuous monitoring of Earth’s magnetospheric and ionospheric activity. We analyze two geomagnetic index time series, AE and SMR, which track activity in the auroral region and around the Earth's equator, respectively. We show here that quantiles of the index distributions track solar cycle variation over solar cycles 21–24. The question is then how the likelihood of events varies with solar cycle activity.

In this paper, events are defined as bursts or excursions above a threshold which is either (i) a fixed value or (ii) a quantile of the distribution of the observed index values. We study the solar cycle dependence of the distributions of the burst return periods, R, and the burst durations, τ. A result from the theory of level crossings (LC) [1] constrains how , the ratio of the mean burst duration to return period, depends on the underlying empirical distribution of the observed quantity.

Our main results are as follows:

  1. At fixed value burst thresholds, is peaked in the declining phase for AE annual samples and follows the sunspot number double peak for SMR.
  2. Bursts are identified in samples at three distinct phases of the solar cycle. At fixed quantile thresholds the distributions of τ and R fall on single empirical curves for each of (i) the AE index at solar minimum, maximum, and declining phase and (ii) the SMR index at solar maximum. This goes beyond the constraint on average from LC theory.
  3. The tail of the empirical cumulative distribution functions of the observed values of the AE and SMR indices collapse onto common functional forms specific to each index and cycle phase when normalized to the first two moments of their exceedance distributions.

Taken together, these results may combine to offer important constraints in the quantification of overall space weather activity levels.

 

Three panels showing how the theory of level crossings relates the empirical cumulative distribution function (cdf) to the ratio of the mean duration to mean return period for bursts above a specified threshold in a timeseries.
The theory of level crossings relates the empirical cumulative distribution function (cdf) to the ratio of the mean duration to mean return period for bursts above a specified threshold in a timeseries. Panels (a) - (c) illustrate this relationship for the SuperMAG 1-min ring current index (SMR) from 1975 to 2017. (a) Cdf values, C(x), and highlighted quantiles of interest (black lines) for nonoverlapping 1-year (-)SMR samples are seen to track the 13-month smoothed monthly sunspot number (red, shifted). (b) Bursts (grey) are identified where the SMR index (black) is below a given threshold, u (blue). Burst parameters duration (τ) and return period (R) are quantified. (c) The ratio of mean burst duration to mean return period for bursts in nonoverlapping 1-year (-)SMR samples over thresholds of 40 nT (purple), 60 nT (blue), and 100 nT (green) follows the sunspot number double peak (grey).

Please see the paper for full details: Bergin, A., Chapman, S. C., Moloney, N. R., & Watkins, N. W. (2022). Variation of geomagnetic index empirical distribution and burst statistics across successive solar cycles. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 127, e2021JA029986. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JA029986

[1] Lawrance, A., & Kottegoda, N. (1977). Stochastic modelling of riverflow time series. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A, 140(1), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.2307/2344516