The 9th International Conference on Urban Climate and the 12th Urban Environment Symposium are taking place this week in the “Pink City” Toulouse. With the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) which will be held in December in Paris, the obvious focus topic for the urban climate conference is the mitigation and adaptation to climate change in urban environment. But, first of all, why should we even ...[Read More]
For a bit of a change of pace the photo of the week this week isn’t a photo at all. Rather it’s a fascinating model output showing ocean surface currents in the North Atlantic. The Gulf Stream is clearly visible as it flows past Atlantic Canada and out towards the middle of the north Atlantic. I am guessing that colour scheme has something to do with current velocity or mass flux or so ...[Read More]
Jonas Kuhn, a researcher at Heidelberg University , took the photograph during a field campaign at Stromboli volcano in Italy. The objective of this campaign was to gather data from different gaseous compounds of the volcanic plume. Via emission fluxes of volcanic gases (e.g. SO2, CO2, halogen compounds…) or the ratio of emitted gases, one can retrieve information about the interior of the v ...[Read More]
Supplies of water on Earth are running dry. The rate at which an ever growing population consumes this precious resource is not matched by our Planet’s ability to replenish it. Water scarcity is proving a problem globally, with regions such as California and Brazil facing some of the most severe water shortages on record. Used for drinking, agriculture and industrial processes, water forms an fund ...[Read More]
Words on Wednesday aims at promoting interesting/fun/exciting publications on topics related to Energy, Resources and the Environment. If you would like to be featured on WoW, please send us a link of the paper, or your own post, at ERE.Matters@gmail.com. *** Gudmundsson, L. and Seneviratne, S. I.: Towards observation-based gridded runoff estimates for Europe, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 2859-28 ...[Read More]
A few months ago, we published the crowd-sourced Open Research Glossary, details of which can be found here. We’ve taken this to the next level now, and published the updated and much prettier version of this resource on Figshare. This means it is now openly licensed for re-use, and can also be cited like any normal research article. We also popped it on Zenodo, because why not! The original ...[Read More]
This weeks photo can be described by one word: mesmerizing. Honestly, it’s hard to tell which part of this photo is better, the beautiful starry sky backdrop or the glow of Kilauea’s smoking crater. Combined, it’s just fantastic. Kilauea is part of the Hawaiian Island volcanic chain which has been formed as the Pacific plate has moved across at hotspot. The volcano is about 300,0 ...[Read More]
Antelope Canyon, located in Arizona, USA, was formed by erosion of the Navajo Sandstone, primarily due to flash flooding and secondarily due to other sub-aerial processes (think of physical weathering processes such as freeze-thaw weathering exfoliation and salt crystallisation). Rainwater runs into the extensive basin above the slot canyon sections, picking up speed and sand as it rushes into the ...[Read More]
The international community will soon agree on a set of sustainable development goals. This is a significant moment for the international community, and a great opportunity for geoscience. Over the coming months a broad discussion is needed as to how we can best support this global effort to eradicate extreme poverty. One important way this can be done is through ‘globalizing geoscience̵ ...[Read More]
Moving 150 tonnes of equipment more than 450km across the Greenland Ice Sheet sounds like a crazy idea. In that context, moving a 14-metre high, dome-shaped, wooden structure seems like a minor point, but it really is not. I do not think I realised what an awesome and awe-inspiring project I was part of, until I was out there, in the middle of the blindingly white ice sheet, and I saw the enormous ...[Read More]
