EGU Blogs

Divisions

CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Cryo History – How airborne glaciologists measured the movement of glaciers before the satellite era

December 13, 2019
Cryo History – How airborne glaciologists measured the movement of glaciers before the satellite era

Recent work published in my department at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) focused on solid ice discharge into the ocean from the Greenland Ice Sheet from 1986 to 2017 (Mankoff et al. 2019). Solid ice discharge is the ice that is lost from a glacier as it flows towards the coast and eventually breaks off as icebergs into the ocean (i.e. calving). Solid ice discharge is an impo ...[Read More]

GD
Geodynamics

The Sassy Scientist – Seeking Specials

December 13, 2019
The Sassy Scientist – Seeking Specials

Every week, The Sassy Scientist answers a question on geodynamics, related topics, academic life, the universe or anything in between with a healthy dose of sarcasm. Do you have a question for The Sassy Scientist? Submit your question here or leave a comment below. Feeling kind of special after her paper got published, Marie-Jeanne asked: How do you feel about special issues? Dear Marie-Jeanne, Un ...[Read More]

CL
Climate: Past, Present & Future

Dear “climate sceptic”, do you have a fire insurance? – Climate policy under uncertainty

December 12, 2019
Dear “climate sceptic”, do you have a fire insurance? – Climate policy under uncertainty

One often hears that ambitious climate policy might be premature while climate change is still “uncertain”. This sounds like a fair argument: The amount of global warming per doubling CO2 is not well constrained, and the amount of economic damage per degree of warming even less. But is this uncertainty a sound excuse to wait and see?   Uncertainty, risk aversion, and insurance If you knew the ...[Read More]

GD
Geodynamics

AGU19 – we’ll be back, soon!

December 11, 2019
AGU19 – we’ll be back, soon!

This week (9-13th December), the AGU19 Fall Meeting is back in the newly renovated Moscone Centre in central San Francisco. For the previous 2 years whilst the facelift has been happening, the Fall Meeting has been carted around to New Orleans and Washington, D.C. You can find more details of the week’s proceedings at the AGU website. It is a special year for the AGU as they celebrate their ...[Read More]

Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology

#EGU2020 Sessions in the Spotlight: Magmatic processes at divergent plate boundaries in space and time

December 11, 2019
#EGU2020 Sessions in the Spotlight: Magmatic processes at divergent plate boundaries in space and time

Do you feel like a journey through time and space, all from the comfort* of a seat in the Austria Centre Vienna? (*comfort not guaranteed). Does your dream holiday involve Iceland, and not for Game of Thrones reasons? Are you jealous of those scientists who spend 12 hours in a tiny submarine just to look at the ocean floor and pick up some basalt? Then here is the session for you at the 2020 EGU c ...[Read More]

Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology

#EGU2020 Sessions in the Spotlight: Hotspots, LIPs and LLSVPs: a global investigation with joint constraints from geochemistry, seismology and geodynamics

December 9, 2019
#EGU2020 Sessions in the Spotlight: Hotspots, LIPs and LLSVPs: a global investigation with joint constraints from geochemistry, seismology and geodynamics

The Earth Sciences are so broad, that sometimes we can end up forgetting the other parts of it exist. We can get so focused on our field that we forget there might be other people working on really similar things, who might have something really useful to say. The EGU conference is great for solving this problem – it’s big enough to bring together all sorts of Earth scientists, but sti ...[Read More]

CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Cryo Adventures – What’s currently going on in Antarctic science?

December 6, 2019
Cryo Adventures – What’s currently going on in Antarctic science?

As Christmas gets closer, days are getting shorter in the northern hemisphere. A good excuse to get cosy inside on the sofa, drinking tea and eating Christmas biscuits. Meanwhile, a few thousand of scientists are heading “South”, to Antarctica, where the lengthening days provide the perfect conditions to conduct a whole variety of scientific field expeditions… Science in Antarctica Just last ...[Read More]

GD
Geodynamics

The Sassy Scientist – Peak Peer-review

December 6, 2019
The Sassy Scientist – Peak Peer-review

Every week, The Sassy Scientist answers a question on geodynamics, related topics, academic life, the universe or anything in between with a healthy dose of sarcasm. Do you have a question for The Sassy Scientist? Submit your question here or leave a comment below. After having dutifully followed the instructions put forward on this very blog on how to write a proper peer-review, Tomás got their i ...[Read More]

Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology

#EGU2020 Sessions in the Spotlight: Continental Rift Evolution: from inception to break-up

December 6, 2019
#EGU2020 Sessions in the Spotlight: Continental Rift Evolution: from inception to break-up

Breaking up is hard, but sometimes it’s the right thing to do. Sometimes it might look like a breakup is about to happen, or it might even begin to happen, then be saved part way through. Sometimes breakups start with a small area of weakness, which grows into something much bigger. If your first thought reading this was ‘continental rifts’ or ‘this guy clearly knows nothin ...[Read More]

TS
Tectonics and Structural Geology

Civita di Bagnoregio – the dying town

December 4, 2019
Civita di Bagnoregio – the dying town

On top of a steep cliff standing out from the surrounding countryside, lies the small town of Civita di Bagnoregio, one of the most famous villages of Italy. It is often called the dying town, although more recently people have started to refer to it as fighting to live. What this little town is fighting against is the threat of erosion, as its walls are slowly crumbling down. Located in central I ...[Read More]