What is happening under a glacier? This is a difficult questions to answer as accessing the glacier bed is usually not that easy. Here, we are getting a rare glimpse of the different processes and materials that are often found at the ice-bed interface. The photograph shows both sediments and hard rock, clear ice and dirty ice, and of course flowing water. No wonder these processes are complicated ...[Read More]
Energy, Resources and the Environment
Oil in Kenya: Blessing or Fuel for Fights
Words on Wednesday aims at promoting interesting/fun/exciting publications on topics related to Energy, Resources and the Environment. If you would like to be featured on WoW, please send us a link of the paper, or your own post, ERE.Matters@gmail.com *** Citation: J. Schilling, R. Locham, T. Weinzierl, J. Vivekananda, and J. Scheffran. The nexus of oil, conflict, and climate change vulnerability ...[Read More]
Atmospheric Sciences
Atmospheric Modelling with Meso-NH
Twice a year in Toulouse Meteo-France runs a tutorial on Meso-NH – the non-hydrostatic mesoscale atmospheric model of the French research community. Last week I was fortunate enough to attend their autumn 2015 tutorial. But, what is this model and was the tutorial useful? Atmospheric models solve the governing equations for atmospheric motions. This allows us, for example, to forecast future ...[Read More]
Seismology
INVITATION: Special Issue on Georisks in the Mediterranean
A special issue themed “Georisks in the Mediterranean and their Mitigation” is being compiled to be published in Natural Hazards (Springer) (Impact Factor of 1.719) http://www.springer.com/earth+sciences+and+geography/natural+hazards/journal/11069 Manuscripts containing original research or reviews are welcome for submission. They will be accepted or rejected after a peer review process. Topics co ...[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Image of the Week: Antarctic ice-shelf thickness
Thickness of floating ice shelves in Antarctica. Ice thickness is greatest close to the grounding line where it can reach 1000 meters or more (red). Away from the grounding line, the ice rapidly thins to reach a few hundreds of meters at the calving front. Ice thickness varies greatly from one ice shelf to another. Within ice shelves, “streams of ice” can be spotted originating from in ...[Read More]
Geomorphology
Report from the Summer School on Geomorphology in the Kaunertal Valley, Austria, 31st August – 6th September 2015
Written by Ciara Fleming ( University College Dublin) The focus of this Summer School was ‘Sediment dynamics in high mountain environments’ and as suggested by this title, the location did not disappoint. For the week-long school we were based in Feichten im Kaunertal (1273m a.s.l.), a perfectly-formed Alpine village in the Province of Tyrol, Austria. The school brought together a diverse group of ...[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Riding the Storm: The Arctic Circle Traverse 2015
In the morning on the 19th of May, we – the Arctic Circle Traverse 2015 – found ourselves in a great dilemma; to stay or to go? On our check-in conversation with the KISS crew, we were informed that an east front from Kulusuk was expected to hit our location up on the ice sheet sometime in the afternoon. The relatively low winds that we were experiencing would get stronger, and the visibility woul ...[Read More]
Energy, Resources and the Environment
Jobs on EGU website
If you are an Early Career Researcher or looking for a new research opportunity why not check out the EGU job site!? http://www.egu.eu/jobs/
Soil System Sciences
Ingrid Kögel-Knabner, a multidisciplinary soil scientist
Ingrid Kögel-Knabner Chair of Soil Science Technical University of Munich The 2015 Philippe Duchaufour Medal is awarded to Ingrid Kögel-Knabner for her fundamental and ground-breaking work on the dynamics and stabilisation of soil organic matter in soils from a basic-chemistry and organo-mineral interactions perspective. I received my doctorate from the University of Bayreuth, Germany, in 1987. In ...[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Image of the Week : SAFIRE team getting ready to drill in Greenland
How do you get a hot water drill onto an ice sheet? The Subglacial Access and Fast Ice Research Experiment (SAFIRE) uses a hot water drill to directly access and observe the physical and geothermal properties where the ice meets rock or sediment at the glacier-bed interface. Here, SAFIRE principal investigator Bryn Hubbard and post-doc Sam Doyle help fly in the drill spool at the start of the Summ ...[Read More]