EGU Blogs

Laura Roberts-Artal February 13, 2015

Geosciences Column: Fire in ice – the history of boreal forest fires told by Greenland ice cores.

Burning of biomass contributes a significant amount of greenhouses gases to the atmosphere, which in turn influences regional air quality and global climate. Since the advent of humans, there has been a significant increase in the amount of biomass burning, particularly after the industrial revolution. What might not be immediately obvious is that, (naturally occurring) fires also play a part in e ...[Read More]

GM

Geomorphology

9th international Young Geomorphologists’ Workshop

Jan Blöthe February 10, 2015

We’re happy to announce the 9th international young geomorphologists’ workshop, organized by the “Junge Geomorphologen” from Germany. The workshop will take place on 08.-10. May 2015 in Heimbach-Hergarten, near Aachen, Germany (see flyer). The meeting will provide an ideal opportunity to present your current work, to discuss problems and receive constructive feedback! We wa ...[Read More]

AS

Atmospheric Sciences

Welcome to the AS division blog

Dasaraden Mauree February 10, 2015

The Atmospheric Sciences Division of the EGU is launching its new blog. This blog hopes to address a number of topics, as well as the major challenges, related to the atmospheric sciences. In this introductory post, I would like to present some of the topics we will address here and also some hurdles the scientific community is trying to overcome. First, let’s agree on some definition ...[Read More]

GeoLog

Imaggeo on Mondays: High altitude glacier monitoring

Laura Roberts-Artal February 9, 2015

What a place to work: Spectacular views from the top of the rugged and icy peaks of Tien Shan mountain range. The desire to better understanding global climate change took Leo Sold to this remote area of Central Asia. The frozen slopes of ice and snow in today’s Imaggeo on Mondays photograph hold some of the keys to understanding how the glaciers in this remote region are being affected by a warmi ...[Read More]

CR

Cryospheric Sciences

The bi-polar behaviour of surge-type glaciers – Heidi Sevestre

Nanna B. Karlsson February 9, 2015

Surge-type glaciers are the bi-polar member of the family of glacier dynamics. Every now and then they go into a complete fury and nobody really understands why. What are surge-type glaciers? Surge-type glaciers typically go through what we call the “surge cycle”. It is divided into two phases; a long quiescent phase during which the glacier is more or less dormant, followed by much shorter phase ...[Read More]

GeoLog

A brief history of science communication

Laura Roberts-Artal February 6, 2015

Science communication has become a common focus of many aspects of academic research and teaching. Despite becoming more prevalent in recent years it has a long and deep rooted history, which goes hand in hand with scientific discovery. In this blog post, Sam Illingworth, gives a brief outline of the history of science communication. Science Communication is a phrase that seems to permeate into ma ...[Read More]

G

Geodesy

Should we, as session conveners, have an expiry date?

Roelof Rietbroek February 4, 2015

This is a guest post written by Jürgen Kusche, who has convened numerous sessions on various international conferences, and had the wonderful idea to use the geodesy division blog to initiate an open discussion on the topic session convening. For that reason, readers are encouraged to comment at the end of this post. Currently, Jürgen Kusche is professor at the Chair of Astronomical, Mathematical ...[Read More]

GeoSphere

GeoPoll: What should we do with radioactive waste?

Matt Herod February 2, 2015

I don’t think it is any secret that the world is facing an imminent energy crisis. We are trying to generate more power than ever before, but at the same time, we now realize we have to do it in a sustainable way that does not harm the environment or exacerbate any existing issues such as climate change. The problem is these two goals are often mutually exclusive. Most of our power generatio ...[Read More]

GeoLog

Imaggeo on Mondays: Fly away, weather balloon

Laura Roberts-Artal February 2, 2015

Some aspects of Earth Science are truly interdisciplinary and this week’s Imaggeo on Mondays photograph is testament to that. The maiden voyage of the research cruise SA Agulhas II offered the perfect opportunity to combine oceanographic research, as well as climate science studies. Raissa Philibert, a biogeochemistry PhD student, took this picture of the daily release of a weather balloon by mete ...[Read More]

PalaeoBlog

Green Tea and Velociraptors

How fast was the demise of the dinosaurs?

Jon Tennant February 2, 2015

It’s dark. It’s always dark these days. Lights in the sky burn your eyes, so you keep your face to ground in the hopes that they’ll go away. But they don’t. The air is heavy. Heavy with poisons that make it difficult to breathe. Heavy with foreboding dread. You, my unfortunate friend, are going through a mass extinction! There have been five periods of mass extinction in the past. These represent ...[Read More]