Atmospheric Sciences

April GeoRoundUp: the best of the Earth sciences from the 2017 General Assembly

Laura Roberts-Artal May 4, 2017

This diagram created by Cassini's mission planning team shows how navigators use Titan flybys to shape Cassini's orbits. Credit NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory - Caltech / Erick Sturm

This month’s GeoRoundUp is a slight deviation from the norm. Instead of drawing inspiration from popular stories on our social media channels and unique or quirky research featured in the news, we’ve rounded up some of the stories which came out of researcher presented at our General Assembly (which took place last week in Vienna). The traditional format for the column will return in May! Major st ...[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: An epic ‘house’ move across the ice

Helle Astrid Kjær May 1, 2017

Pulling ‘the dome’ from NEEM to EastGrip Greenland . Credit: Helle Astrid Kjær (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

In 2008 the NEEM Deep Ice Core Project was initiated by 14 partner countries in Northwestern Greenland (camp position 77.45°N 51.06°W) with the aim to drill from the very top of the Greenland ice cap to its base; obtaining ice from as far back as the last interglacial period- the Eemian – some 130,000 years old. At the start of the 2008 field season, the NEEM camp consisted of a single hea ...[Read More]

Extraordinary iridescent clouds inspire Munch’s ‘The Scream’

Hazel Gibson April 26, 2017

Are the lurid colours and tremulous lines of Munch's 'The Scream', caused by strange and rarer nacreous clouds? L: Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ 1893. R: Mother-of-pearl or nacreous clouds. Credit: Svein Fikke.

Edvard Munch’s series of paintings and sketches ‘The Scream’ are some of the most famous works by a Norwegian artist, instantly recognisable and reproduced the world over. But what was the inspiration behind this striking piece of art? The lurid colours and tremulous lines have long been thought to represent Munch’s unstable state of mind; a moment of terror caught in shocking technicolour. At the ...[Read More]

Knowing the ocean’s twists and turns

Conor Purcell April 12, 2017

The ocean’s currents . Credit: Canuckguy (talk) and many others (see File history) derivative work (distributed via Wikimedia Commons )

Navigating the ocean demands a knowledge of its movements. In the past, sailors have used this knowledge to their advantage, following the winds and the ocean currents to bring them on their way. Prior to mutiny in 1789, Captain Bligh – on the HMS Bounty – famously spent a month attempting to pass westward through the Drake Passage, around Patagonia’s Cape Horn. Here the westerly ...[Read More]