Divisions

Cryospheric Sciences

Questions from space: what is snow and what is ice on the Greenland ice sheet?

Adrien Wehrlé July 2, 2021

We usually think of a glacier as a white, clean surface. Well, this is only an idealized vision because in reality glaciers are far from immaculate, they can be colored! And this is extremely important since colored (dirty) ice absorbs more solar radiation than clean ice, accelerating melt. One of the places on Earth where it is fundamental to understand these processes is Greenland, where ice is ...[Read More]

GD

Geodynamics

The Sassy Scientist – Well, Actually…

The Sassy Scientist July 2, 2021

How to write a reply to reviewers for the first time? Dear Marcelo, Oh my, oh my! First off, congrats for finally getting that ‘final_manuscript_v10.doxc’ out of your computer and into the submission portal. And congrats for not being desk rejected. You have already made it where many others have failed. The first reply to reviewers can be daunting and overwhelming. You are supposed to ...[Read More]

G

Geodesy

Insights from the past ECS Representative of the Geodesy division

edited by Rebekka Steffen and Andreas Kvas July 2, 2021

For our last interview we haven’t talked to a member of the current Geodesy division team. Instead we asked the past ECS (Early Career Scientist) representative of the Geodesy division, Katrin Bentel, a few questions. Fortunately, she gave us some insights about the role of an ECS Representative. Find out below. What did you like most about your time as the Geodesy ECS Representative? ...[Read More]

NP

Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences

NPG Paper of the Month: “Recurrence analysis of extreme event-like data”

Abhirup Banerjee July 1, 2021

The May 2021 NPG Paper of the Month award goes Abhirup Banerjee and his co-authors for their paper “Recurrence analysis of extreme event-like data“. Abhirup is pursuing a doctoral degree in Theoretical Physics at University of Potsdam. He is working at Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research as a guest researcher as part of the DFG funded NatRiskChange project. In this project, he ...[Read More]

CL

Climate: Past, Present & Future

Feeling the Heat: The Grilled Earth

Francisco José Cuesta-Valero, Almudena García-García, Hugo Beltrami and Joel Finnis July 1, 2021

Nowadays, there are plenty of media reports about the impacts of climate change around the world. Glaciers are disappearing, gigantic craters form in Siberia as the previously frozen ground thaws, the sea is threatening to swallow entire islands, floods cause large damages to people and economy, heat waves periodically destroy crops and can reach dangerous levels for people’s health. And this is o ...[Read More]

GMPV

Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology

A lava for (almost) every colour

Simona Gabrielli June 30, 2021

When we think about a volcanic eruption, one of the first things that come to our mind are lava fountains and flows with a characteristic bright orange and red colour. The colour of lavas can be associated with the temperature reached at the surface: dark red at low temperatures (475°C), orange at 900°C and white at extremely high temperature (>1150°C) (Kilburn, 2000). However, some places on E ...[Read More]

GD

Geodynamics

Happy blog birthday!

Iris van Zelst June 30, 2021

Listen up, everyone! The blog turns 4 year old this week! 4 years. We’ve been blogging for 4 years. Holy moly. You can finish a PhD in that time (I mean, I didn’t, but – you know – you could). We’ve had another cracking year, so let’s reflect a bit on the past year – undoubtedly one of the weirdest years in (blog) history. What did we do? A lot. ThatR ...[Read More]

HS

Hydrological Sciences

Listening to a bouquet of articles: review papers

Nilay Dogulu June 30, 2021

Let me guess from which city in the world you are reading this post: Lima, Lahore or Louisville? It might be that you are modelling one of these rivers: Nile, Rhine or Lena? Or studying the Caribbean Sea, the Arabian Sea or the Caspian Sea? The country you live might be Uganda, Philippines or maybe Iceland and your home continent could well be Europe, Latin America or even Antarctica. I assume you ...[Read More]

TS

Tectonics and Structural Geology

TS Must-Read – Sylvester (1988) Strike-slip faults

The Must-read team June 30, 2021

Strike-slip faults by Arthur Sylvester (1988) is a must-read paper for anyone, and more so for those who want to understand the mechanisms of strike-slip faulting. Although it mostly refers to the San Andreas fault, the most studied strike-slip fault at the time (and possibly to date), the contribution is a comprehensive review of the state of the art about strike-slip faults in general. Sylvester ...[Read More]

NH

Natural Hazards

Artificial intelligence for disaster management: that’s how we stand

Giulia Roder June 28, 2021

On the 23rd of June, I participated in the Second Workshop for AI (Artificial Intelligence) for Natural Disaster Management that hosted around 400 scientists, UN advisors, practitioners and policymakers from all over the world interested in machine learning for supporting disaster prediction and early warning. AI is not my research area; however, I have always been interested in the new advances t ...[Read More]