The world’s oldest, deepest freshwater lake lies in southeast Siberia: Lake Baikal. Stretching some 600 kilometres across the Russian landscape, Baikal marks what the very early stages of a new ocean – an ancient rift that cleaved the centre of Asia apart throughout the Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic. Today, there are still signs of tectonic activity and the rift continues to diverge 4 mm furth ...[Read More]
Climate-proofing the Netherlands
Emerging Leaders in Environmental and Energy Policy (ELEEP) fosters transatlantic relations, forges dialogue, and promotes leadership across energy and environmental policy landscapes. Former EGU Science Communications Fellow and ELEEP member Edvard Glücksman reports back from the Netherlands, where citizens manage the continuous threat of climate-related devastation through a combination of creat ...[Read More]
GeoTalk: Want a record of historical floods? Ask the taxman
Extreme weather events, like catastrophic floods, are the malicious exclamation points of Earth’s chaotic and variable climate system; they arrive without warning and extract huge costs, both economic and humanitarian, from the communities they strike. Evidence suggests the frequency and severity of these events may be on the rise in a changing climate, but scientists struggle to place modern even ...[Read More]
Meltwater ponds halt new sea ice growth
Each September, battered by the relentless sun-filled days of summer, the smooth expanse of the Arctic Ocean reaches the climax of its annual transformation. Replacing the endless blanket of winter ice, a vast jigsaw puzzle stretches across the pole, a mosaic of soggy snow islands floating amid turquoise ponds of meltwater and inlets of dark blue sea. These meltwater ponds have been shown to drama ...[Read More]