The EGU’s #vEGU21 streamed a wide variety of virtual sessions from Short Courses to Union Symposia. While most #vEGU21 sessions had a specific scientific focus, a few highlighted topics that were of interest to geoscientists across multiple disciplines. The Union Symposia 3: “A Climate and Ecological Emergency: Can a pandemic help save us…?” was one of these sessions with a high level of participa ...[Read More]
Most of the EGU’s GeoPolicy blog posts focus on overarching topics that I believe will be useful for the majority of scientists who read them. I see myself as a facilitator who connects scientists and policymakers, providing impartial information to promote more effective knowledge exchange and subsequently evidence-informed policies. This month’s GeoPolicy post however, takes a differ ...[Read More]
As of 19 February 2021, the US officially re-joined the Paris Climate Agreement, a landmark international accord to limit global warming by 2°C (and ideally to 1.5°C) compared to pre-industrial levels. The Paris Climate Agreement aims to bring the world together to avoid catastrophic warming that will impact us all and to build resilience to the consequences of climate change that we are already s ...[Read More]
2020 was a brilliant year for our blogging network here at EGU. Across the EGU’s official blog, GeoLog, as well as the network and division blogs there were so many interesting, educational and just downright entertaining posts this year it was hard to get the blog editors to choose their favourites! Nevertheless at the beginning of January, to celebrate the excellent display of science writing ac ...[Read More]
120 years ago in 1901, Swedish meteorologist Nils Ekholm used the term ‘greenhouse’ to describe the heating effect that a planet’s atmosphere has on the surface temperature of the planet, the first time that this now much-used and abused metaphor was published. He wrote: “The atmosphere plays a very important part of a double character as to the temperature at the earth’s surface, of which the one ...[Read More]
Cyclone Idai, which was labelled by the UN as possibly the worst climate calamity to ever hit the Southern Hemisphere, pounded Beira, Mozambique, in March 2019. The European Space Agency images revealed that a huge new inland ´lake´ measuring about 80 miles by 15 miles, an area the size of the European state of Luxembourg, had suddenly been created by the catastrophe. However, millions of residen ...[Read More]
Taken shortly after our departure from Ny-Ålesund after our first “Lost Meteorites” field trial in Greenland testing new equipment that can be used to discover ‘missing’ iron meteorites in Antarctica, the return flight gave incredible views of the surrounding landscape. This photo was taken looking down to the icy waters of Kongsfjorden on the west coast of Svalbard and the ...[Read More]
Moisture coming from the ground is freezing at the entrances of small ground pockets, shaping wonderful natural ice crystals, during a very cold and dry winter in Poland in 2019. Description by Katarzyna Walczak, after the description on imaggeo.egu.eu. Imaggeo is the EGU’s online open access geosciences image repository. All geoscientists (and others) can submit their photographs and video ...[Read More]
The coating by the ice and the icicles are created through the interplay of wave action and the simultaneous freezing of the water around the exposed tree roots. The reason for the exposed tree roots is increased bank erosion due to a rather unusual circumstance. The combination of the lake not yet being frozen in early winter, and strong winter storms, make it very easy for the waves to erode the ...[Read More]
Earlier this year, the EGU hosted the Integrating science into the EU Green Deal event in collaboration with the Intergroup on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development to outline how the geosciences can most effectively support the European Green Deal and ensure its ambitious biodiversity and zero-pollution targets are reached. The event provided policymakers, scientists and indust ...[Read More]