EGU Blogs

Divisions

NH
Natural Hazards

In between Natural Hazards and Heritage, interview to Maria Bostenaru

In between Natural Hazards and Heritage, interview to Maria Bostenaru

In today’s interview, we talk with Dr Maria Bostenaru. Maria is an architecture engineer interested in the complex relationship between urban areas, natural hazards, and heritage. She tells us how she thinks that involving more humanities, which include, for example, the study of languages, literature, archaeology, together with information technology solutions, may result in new important a ...[Read More]

CL
Climate: Past, Present & Future

Glacier retreat and music

Glacier retreat and music

In virtually all parts of the world glaciers are retreating, and this is often considered to be one of the clearest signs of global warming (e.g. Leclercq and J Oerlemans, 2011). Glaciers started to shrink in the second half of the 19th century and, apart from some minor interruptions, this development has continued until today. Over the past hundred years glacier melt has made a significant contr ...[Read More]

GD
Geodynamics

The Sassy Scientist – Inclusive Mentoring 101 1.0

The Sassy Scientist – Inclusive Mentoring 101 1.0

In anticipation of a remote and highly-sanitised new academic year, with a new cohort of virus-carrying PhDs, Chris wonders: What do you do if students come from different cultural backgrounds where student participation and discussion is not valued? Dear Chris, Easy: you jump three times and clap with joy as you just hit JACKPOT! Do you finally have a student who does not question your great wisd ...[Read More]

CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Exploring the hidden plumbing of glaciers with Cryoegg

Exploring the hidden plumbing of glaciers with Cryoegg

Plumbing is something we take for granted: the pipes that bring us water to wash and drink, and the pipes that take the waste water away again. We see the taps and basins in our kitchen and bathroom – but the pipes are hidden away under the floor or inside the walls – and we mostly ignore them until there’s a leak or a blockage! It turns out that glaciers have plumbing too – and ...[Read More]

HS
Hydrological Sciences

Amilcare Porporato (2020 John Dalton Medallist) on agile models for complex systems in the environmental sciences

Amilcare Porporato (2020 John Dalton Medallist) on agile models for complex systems in the environmental sciences

The EGU 2020 John Dalton Medal of the EGU Division on Hydrological Sciences was awarded to Amilcare Porporato for his contributions to the field of ecohydrology and for developing new theories for the analysis of soil-plant-atmosphere systems across scales. Given the online EGU 2020 GA, the medal lecture is postponed to 2021. In April, Amilcare wrote the post below to the HS community. I’m very ha ...[Read More]

GD
Geodynamics

What controls Victoria microplate rotation in the East African Rift?

Lake Magadi, Kenya.

This week in News & Views, Anne Glerum, postdoc at GFZ Potsdam, discusses how her numerical models support a lithosphere-driven mechanism for the rotation of large continental microplates, like Victoria in the East African Rift System. The East African Rift System (EARS) is a newly forming divergent boundary between the Nubian and Somalian plates (Fig. 1). The plate boundary system includes se ...[Read More]

TS
Tectonics and Structural Geology

Istanbul: The city across two continents

Istanbul: The city across two continents

Istanbul – an economic, cultural, and historic centre. Its unique geography, natural resources and beauty have drawn the attention of not only geoscientists but also poets, merchants, painters, sculptors, architects, kings and emperors for centuries. Throughout its history, the city has witnessed the rise and fall of some of the world’s greatest empires. Owing to its geopolitically important ...[Read More]

CR
Cryospheric Sciences

The future of Arctic sea ice

The future of Arctic sea ice

The illustration above shows a sketch of the evolution of Arctic sea ice for different levels of warming and the different months of the year, based on the simple extrapolation of observations. A new study, in which I was involved, uses the latest available global climate models and shows that the Arctic Ocean could become practically ice free at the end of the summer for the first time before 205 ...[Read More]

GD
Geodynamics

The Sassy Scientist – Egghead Entertainment

The Sassy Scientist – Egghead Entertainment

Yu-Seok has depleted his streaming service queue, thrown all of the stocked board games off the table, and eagerly seeks new ways to squander his energy after a long workday of couch-surfing underneath his laptop: What should a scientist do as a pastime? Dear Yu-Seok, Where can you find the time? And the energy? Aren’t we all simply working continuously? I go to extremes to even find the energy an ...[Read More]

NP
Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences

NPG Paper Highlight: “Baroclinic and barotropic instabilities in planetary atmospheres: energetics, equilibration and adjustment”

NPG Paper Highlight: “Baroclinic and barotropic instabilities in planetary atmospheres: energetics, equilibration and adjustment”

Today’s our blog hosts a review article by the 2016 EGU Richardson medallist Peter Read, together with Daniel Kennedy, Neil Lewis, Hélène Scolan, Fachreddin Tabataba-Vakili, YixiongWang, Susie Wright, and Roland Young for the special issue of NPG celebrating 100 years of IUGG (https://npg.copernicus.org/articles/27/147/2020/npg-27-147-2020.html). One of the great achievements of the past 100 ...[Read More]