Autumn had finally arrived – the weather had cooled down enough to start rock climbing outside again in southern Arizona. I was working on scaling a mountain’s cliff face tall enough to be a skyscraper with nearly 15 fellow scientists climbing routes around me. My palms were sweaty with nerves and my muscles were starting …[Read More]
How much we pay, as both scientists and the public, for publishing and accessing papers is a hot topic right across the academic community – and rightly so. Publishing houses, and their fees, are big, big business. To which journal we should submit our work is a regular decision we face. But what are the …[Read More]
![For Dummies – How do wildfires impact permafrost? [OR.. a story of ice and fire]](https://blogs.egu.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/17/2019/10/DJI01011-1024x768.webp)
Wildfire – like the ones observed in the Northwest Territories, Canada in 2014 (Fig. 1) – is a natural part of permafrost landscapes, but fires are expected to get more frequent and severe as the climate warms. This could accelerate the degradation of permafrost, with negative consequences on the local and global scale! We have …[Read More]
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. In a comment on a post about the key papers in geodynamics, …[Read More]
You have probably heard the name “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)” mentioned frequently over the last few years. The IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing science related to climate change and it publishes global assessment reports on this topic every 5 to 10 years. Due to the current urgency of the global climate …[Read More]
A privilege of being an academic is the freedom to muse, staying faithful to the title of a PhD which is, after all, a doctor of philosophy. In his latest reflection on a topic of importance to all scientific disciplines, Dan Bower (CSH and Ambizione Fellow at the University of Bern) discusses the ambiguity that …[Read More]
Introduction Humans have existed and lived alongside volcanoes for as long as we have been on the planet. For some, this has been beneficial and often, in fact, we can see how indigenous knowledge finds a sustainable approach living with them. However, in some cases, societies cannot cope and are overwhelmed with volcanic eruptions. There …[Read More]
By Frances Deegan and Ralf Halama Carbon – the element on everyone’s lips. Carbon is unquestionably one of the most important elements on Earth – terrestrial life is carbon-based and so are many of our energy sources. From the perspective of a human time-scale, biological and anthropogenic (caused by human activity) carbon fluxes are very …[Read More]
As the Arctic is warming faster than the global average, Arctic glaciers are rapidly melting. My research is about the fate of glacial organic carbon when the ice containing it melts. To investigate these processes, I travelled to several glaciers, an activity full of challenges… and rewards! My research Glacier ice covers about 11% of …[Read More]
Fieldwork is a necessity to expand the brain, to kick-start 3D thinking. Field studies with a specific application in mind have – until now – usually been geared towards hydrocarbon reservoirs. However, with the increasing use of the subsurface, for example for CO2 storage and geothermal energy, alternative field studies gain importance. Here, we will …[Read More]
