“The outcome of this project will help us to understand the Amazonian forest system before we all destroy it completely” The Amazon Rainforest in South America represents the Earth´s largest rainforest, housing at least 10% of the world´s known biodiversity and consisting of more than 350 billion individual trees. Besides its large diversity in floral and faunal species, the Amazonian ...[Read More]
Sarah Connors, EGU Science Policy Fellow Antonio Jordán, University of Seville Soil is often considered as the skin of the Earth and is located at the interface between the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere. Soil is the physical and nutritional support for living organisms in emerged areas.
The Greenland Ice Sheet contains enough fresh water to raise global sea level by around 6 m, therefore it is very important to understand how the ice moves from the interior of the ice sheet towards the oceans. Processes that happen at the base of the ice sheet, where the ice meets the bed, are known to be a key control on how the ice moves. Geophysical techniques, such as recording tiny icequakes ...[Read More]
A new global S-wave model has recently been published in Geophysical Journal International. While this sounds exciting enough to tomographers and geodynamicists, this model has been constructed in a rather avant-garde way, too. It is one out of only two global tomographic models ever to be made based on the Earth’s background oscillations, that is long-periodic seismic noise also known as Earth’s ...[Read More]
The blue ice areas of Antarctica are one of the most fascinating parts of the ice sheet. In these regions, snowfall is so low that the ice is laid bare by the wind and consequently sublimates. This exposes beautiful, blue ice surfaces, like an ocean frozen in time. This picture was taken at a site named “Windy Corner” by the Kottas Mountains, in the northernmost part of the Heimefrontf ...[Read More]
A new study combining satellite observations and model simulations shows that clouds increase meltwater runoff in Greenland by one-third compared to a cloud-free scenario. Precipitation effects not considered, clouds above the Greenland ice sheet reduce its Surface Mass Balance (SMB) [red in figure] compared to clear-sky conditions [blue in figure]. Because clouds trap the outgoing radiation from ...[Read More]
Is this concept bed taking earthquake-safety to the next level? The fact is that an earthquake can happen at any time of day. Unfortunately, the reality is that many die trapped under the rubble of their own homes. The featured beds (shown here via YouTube) show various earthquake-proof bed designs. The beds have strong metal structures that enclose when an earthquake strikes. In case of a buildin ...[Read More]
Communicating with the public is increasingly an issue for geoscientists both in research and in industry, but how do we deal with communicating those aspects of our work that are controversial? Many scientists shy away from those issues that are likely to draw the attention of an angry public, because, quite reasonably, they don’t want to be attacked for just doing their job. But these controvers ...[Read More]
Within the scientific community, it is common practice that the peer-review process for a submitted article to a journal is kept anonymous. That is, only the journal Editor selects (and knows) who the referees are, usually three. This is also known as single-blind review. One of the main reason behind this custom is to allow the referees give genuine feedback, without fear of causing any personal ...[Read More]
December 2014, 11:50 p.m., the sun licks the horizon on Derwael ice rise; It’s time to go back to the tent … The shot was taken during the 2014 IceCon Field campaign in East Antarctica (read Brice’s blog post telllling about his first journey to Antarctica). Here, you can also read about the 2016 field season of the IceCon project, which started just a few days ago.
