Carolina Cavazos-Guerra, Germany The Saharan desert has one of the most extreme climates on Earth. The dust loading and thermodynamics over this region are unique, and have major impacts on the climate of North Africa, Europe and the Atlantic. Fennec is a large-scale programme designed to tackle one of the world’s key climate regions by delivering …[Read More]
Division blogs
Soil System Sciences
Boring Soil Science strikes back
Many scientists are currently debating whether soil science is an academic field in which scientists are engaged in talking to each other, ignoring the rest of society. Of course, traditionally, the dissemination of soil science has been a difficult field. Among other problems, some scientists have reviewed the use of complicated jargon. Soil Science academics …[Read More]
Seismology
Earthquake shakes Twitter users and geeks do some science (oh, and celebrities said they felt it too)
The ever increasing use of mobile phones constantly connected to the internet is bring on a new era in scientific research called crowdsourcing. On Wikipedia crowdsourcing is the defined as the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community. In recent …[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
Monday paper: Interplay of riparian forest and groundwater in the hillslope hydrology of Sudanian West Africa (northern Benin)
Richard, A., Galle, S., Descloitres, M., Cohard, J.-M., Vandervaere, J.-P., Séguis, L., and Peugeot, C. 2013. Interplay of riparian forest and groundwater in the hillslope hydrology of Sudanian West Africa (northern Benin), Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 17, 5079-5096. DOI: 10.5194/hess-17-5079-2013. Abstract Forests are thought to play an important role in the regional dynamics of the …[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
Soil color never lies
Often, soil color is described using general terms such as “brown”, “red”, “dark”, etc. When I talk about this issue for the first time with my students of Soil Science, I use to ask them how to describe the color of a soil sample. Normally, in a few seconds, I get a list of color …[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
The Fire Research Institute, more than three decades of Fire Science
Jason Greenlee jasongreenlee@hotmail.com The Fire Research Institute (FRI) was founded in 1983 as a non-profit organization with the lofty goal of promoting world peace through fire science. The concept was stolen from Richard Nixon, who, you will remember, opened up relations between the US and China by sending a ping-pong team to visit China. I …[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
Monday paper: A dual isotope approach to isolate soil carbon pools of different turnover times
Torn, M. S., Kleber, M., Zavaleta, E. S., Zhu, B., Field, C. B., and Trumbore, S. E. 2013. A dual isotope approach to isolate soil carbon pools of different turnover times. Biogeosciences, 10, 8067-8081. DOI: 10.5194/bg-10-8067-2013. Abstract Soils are globally significant sources and sinks of atmospheric CO2. Increasing the resolution of soil carbon turnover estimates is important for predicting the response of soil carbon cycling …[Read More]
Seismology
Job opportunity with EGU
The EGU is seeking to appoint a Communications Officer to work with the EGU Media and Communications Manager in maintaining and further developing media- and science-related communications between the EGU and its membership, the working media, and the public at large. The Communications Officer will also work under the direction of the EGU Executive Secretary on activities related to the …[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
Seminar series: Applied Earth Observation Techniques for Archaeology and the Environment
These seminars aim to explore and promote the use of Earth Observation (EO) techniques for different aspects of archaeological and paleoenvironmental research, including prospection/detection, classification, mapping and modeling. The variety of EO-related topics that will be presented in these seminars reflects some of the current trends in remote sensing applications in archaeological contexts. Focusing on …[Read More]
Seismology
Have you been drinking Guinness for St Patrick’s?
Yesterday was St Patrick’s day, celebrated world wide, probably with a pint of Guinness. Perhaps while sipping down a pint you may have wondered why do bubbles in Guinness sink? Here is one-of-a kind paper that discusses just this! They concluded that the flow in a glass of stout depends on the shape of the glass. …[Read More]