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Challenging challenges in Earth science research at the EGU General Assembly!

Eleanore Heasley, Renee van Dongen, Anne Voigtländer, Felix Nieberding, Liseth Perez and Johannes Buckel June 5, 2019

At the short course 'Crowd-solving Problems in Earth Sciences' during the EGU General Assembly 2019, scientists came together to both network and brainstorm solutions to some of the challenges that fellow researchers face.

At the EGU General Assembly 2019 last month, if you walked through the dark basement and the most distant hallways of the convention centre, into room -2.62 on Wednesday evening, you may have heard people introducing themselves followed by the words “… and I have a problem.” This may have sounded like a support group. In fact, if you had entered the room it would have been clear that you had just walked into a kind of support group – a scientific one. In the Crowd-solving Problems in Earth Sciences short course scientific, career-related and logistical problems were shared and discussed.

After the success of last year’s ‘Crowd-Solving problems in Earth science research’ session, a group of young geomorphologists decided to organize a second crowd-solving session at the EGU 2019 meeting, but this year for a broader audience, covering various EGU divisions (including Biogeosciences, Earth Magnetism & Rock Physics, Geomorphology, Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology).

This short course aims to provide a platform especially, but not exclusively, for early career scientists (ECS) to network and brainstorm with fellow researchers. Discussing the challenges you face in your research among your peers may help you to find the core of the problem, a path to the solution, or even other ECS that face similar problems and may become your fellows in the search for an answer.

: Credit: Johannes Buckel

Despite the unlucky scheduling of the session (from 19:00-20:30) 35 scientists participated this short course. In this blog, we summarize the problems highlighted in the event and share the discussions, ideas and solutions that emerged from the brainstorming session with those who didn’t find this safe place at the EGU General Assembly and the wider EGU community.

Fatherhood and parental leave: How to balance career and family in the 21st century?

Fatherhood and parental leave: How to balance career and family in the 21st century? Credit: Johannes Buckel

(Samuel Wharton, University of Leicester, United Kingdom)

One of the most important events in a man’s life is the day when he becomes a father. During these special times, it is inevitable that young fathers still want to spend time with their new-born child. However, in science, new fathers are usually early career researchers on temporary contracts and the paternity leave offered can be poor, as little as a few days to week. Thus, new fathers can often be torn between wanting to take time out to be with their child and the battle to retain job security for their new family. As a result, the majority of childcare is provided by the partner, who often ends up sacrificing their own career ambitions.

In the discussion, we found that the underlying problem is that scientific environments are built on short term contracts. This conflicts with the need for paternity leave to be more flexible, allowing men to take up to six months leave if necessary and to accommodate their partners’ ambitions. Therefore, taking time out should be considered in both partners’ CVs, so that they are not punished in their careers for producing less papers, for example. Most importantly, future fathers should not be afraid to proactively talk to their partners, supervisors and colleagues about the expectations that are placed upon them. The enjoyment of fatherhood, if granted time, could be for the benefit of every scientist.

Ground control to Major Tom: How to identify fixed reference points in a dynamic landscape?

(Eike Reinosch, TU Braunschweig, Germany)

Ground control to Major Tom: How to identify fixed reference points in a dynamic landscape? Credit: Johannes Buckel

When using satellite data in research, finding reliable and fixed reference points is essential for analysing how an object or surface moves over time. Without a reference point, the satellite data is much like ‘Major Tom’ from David Bowie’s song ‘Space Oddity’: Helplessly floating in space. Choosing a bad reference point however, could make all results invalid and completely useless. But how can we be certain, that the points we choose are reliable, even in a highly dynamic study area?

Luckily we crowd-solved some ideas and suggestions. As a first step, we can use the data available to perform a preliminary selection of reference points following a few criteria: the selected points must feature a stable backscatter signal of the satellite radar waves over time, be present and clearly visible in all images, be far away from moisture sources which could disturb the signal and, if possible, be located on bed-rock material. A second step would be to perform a statistical clustering of areas based on similar patterns and features to ensure that results are comparable.

However, during the discussion we realized that while a statistical evaluation of reference points is absolutely essential, it is just as important to verify those reference points in the field. Following field observations of potential fix points the data needs to be reprocessed with remaining reliable reference points. This should produce the best grounded result possible.

Crowdsourced data: How to use citizen science to study natural hazards in remote areas?

(Joanne Wood, King’s College London, UK)

Crowdsourced data: How to use citizen science to study natural hazards in remote areas? Credit: Johannes Buckel

Researching natural hazards in remote locations can be a challenge. Natural hazards are often only recorded if they impact humans, so records do not accurately reflect the quantity or frequency of hazards in remote regions. This means data for research into natural hazard frequency in remote regions is often incomplete.

In the brain-storming session, we talked about how citizen science provides an opportunity to bridge this gap in data availability. One of the notable outcomes of the session was the idea that citizen scientists, from children to grannies, could inspect satellite imagery from remote areas to identify the location and timing of natural hazards using online platforms. This could be supplemented with local knowledge by engaging with remote communities to map events as they happen and to help pinpoint events that have happened in the past.

We also came up with other creative sources of information, such as utilising tourist photos for high temporal resolution monitoring and even strapping cameras to animals (llamas were suggested for Jo’s case study of Peru) to access the most remote locations.

Communicating science to the public: Are we missing something?

(Stacy Phillips, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK)

Communicating science to the public: Are we missing something? Credit: Johannes Buckel

Science communication events are becoming increasingly common and more scientists are now feeling the need to communicate science to the public. However, the parts of the public that participate in science communication events are often self-selective groups that are already interested in science. How can we reach an entire cross-section of the public?

In the discussion we didn’t find a unified approach which would enable us to reach out to the entire public, but rather decided that knowing your audience was key, that each group is different and requires a different communication style. We should remember that we, as scientists, are part of the public, and instead of ‘communicating to’ the public, we should be ‘engaging with’ the public, having two-way conversations and getting them actively involved.

Good science communication however is hard, and requires time and expertise to get it right. To improve public outreach in the future, we first need to train our scientists in communication skills at an early career stage. Science is all about communication, making such skills beneficial for your entire career. Outreach work also needs to be valued at an institutional level, required on academic CVs, and incentivised in career pathways, in order to reward those who are passionate and who excel in science communication.

Sharing is caring: How to improve accessibility to scientific infrastructure beyond national boundaries?

(Adrián Flores-Orozco, TU Wien, Austria)

Sharing is caring: How to improve accessibility to scientific infrastructure beyond national boundaries? Credit: Johannes Buckel

Geoscientists want to ensure data quality, and thus ship their equipment, and materials abroad, and prefer to analyse collected scientific samples in their own laboratories. This is a challenge when conducting research and field work beyond national boundaries, especially in remote or conflict areas (Latin America, Iran, etc.). However, in the discussion we found out that these difficulties even arise within European countries.

There are several different kinds of research limiting issues that you can encounter when trying to get samples from across borders to your laboratory, including political restrictions, expensive shipment costs, long duration with associated delays in publications and graduation. A solution could be to improve accessibility to scientific infrastructure abroad. This would entail collaborating with local researchers and sharing equipment and laboratories. Feasible solutions could be:

the creation of an international logistic consortium and a network of geoscientists working abroad,
an international inventory of available infrastructure and laboratories, and
convincing national or European financing agencies to invest abroad to avoid constant exportation and importation of equipment and samples.

We recognize that these are great solutions, but we need to take action to make them real. We urgently need to improve communication between researchers, stakeholders and financing agencies. To raise the pressure for change we can publish on the problem in an open access journal. We should take advantage of social media to interact among geoscientists working abroad and to share their experiences and possible solutions. We all could start caring about others, and actively share our scientific infrastructure without borders.

The mean mean: Can we trust average erosion rates?

(Günther Prasicek, University of Lausanne, Switzerland)

The mean mean: Can we trust average erosion rates? Credit: Johannes Buckel

We try to resolve the stochastic and sometimes random nature of surface processes, like erosion and sedimentation in both time and space, by averaging. By doing so we introduce biases and misleading impression. A mean thing about the mean rate is that processes might seem to be continuous, while in reality erosion and deposition rather occur as discrete pulses with hiatus, thus time spans without anything happening, in between. A common bias, such as the so-called Sadler effect, is introduced due to the temporal and spatial scales we average over.

The discussion posed a number of interesting questions: How can we approach these trust issues concerning the mean as they seem inevitable to many of Earth science research questions? Do we need methodological and conceptual frameworks which provide the bounds of the data as well as their interpretations? How can we stochastically scrutinize the data and its limit? How can we technically advance and thus trust mean rates?

To bring back this Meta discussion down to Earth, the proposed solutions are simple: let’s change the sampling strategies, sample more, spatially random and in very low erosion environments. Combine diverse methods to use varying spatial and temporal resolutions to bootstrap rates in between. And if possible, simply, develop new methods with different averaging time spans. Next steps in practice would be to first compile data of possible hiatus length and data from different methods/strategies, and then cross-compare their timespan and resulting rates at different landscape activities. We need to be ruthless with what we can actually tell with the mean data we have and should embrace low rates – as they are exciting!

We are planning on organising crowd-solving session(s) again next year. If anybody has any problems they want to solve, they can let us know!

By Eleanore Heasley (King’s College London, UK), Renee van Dongen and Anne Voigtländer (GFZ Potsdam, Germany), and Felix Nieberding, Liseth Perez and Johannes Buckel (TU Braunschweig, Germany)

Organizing team of the session also included: Harry Sanders and Richard Mason (Loughborough University, UK)

Imaggeo on Mondays: Sand and snow on the Tibetan Plateau

Olivia Trani June 3, 2019

Snow & Sand in Harmony. Credit: Monica Cardarilli (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu).

Roughly 50 million years ago, the Eurasian and Indian continental plates began to crash into each other, dramatically changing the landscape of modern-day Asia. The force of the collision caused the Earth to scrunch together at the zone of impact, subsequently forming the Himalayan mountain range. However, to the north of the crash, a stretch of the Earth uplifted without bunching up or wrinkling; instead the clash formed an elevated flat surface five times as large as France, now known as the Tibetan Plateau.

The Tibetan Plateau is often called the ‘Roof of the World,’ as the region’s average elevation exceeds 4,500 metres and is home to the Earth’s highest peaks, including Mount Everest and K2. The plateau is also a crossroad for many different kinds of ecosystems and geologic features, including deep canyons, winding rivers, massive glaciers, boundless grasslands and alpine deserts.

This week’s featured image, taken by Monica Cardarilli, a risk and safety engineer at the Sapienza University of Rome in Italy, gives a snapshot into the plateau’s dynamic and diverse environment, where snow, water, soil and organic matter all make their mark on the landscape. “In this picture natural elements are expressed by the colors, like a painting where the whole exceeds the single parts in a mix of perceptions,” says Cardarilli.

The landscape of the plateau and the surrounding mountainous regions is also as fragile as it is diverse, and many scientists fear that climate change and other human activities are rapidly altering this corner of the Earth. For example, research suggests that the Tibetan Plateau is experiencing higher rates of warming compared to the global average, which has already caused concerning levels of glacier melt, flooding, desertification and grassland degradation in the area.

A recent report suggests that, due to climate change, at least one third of the glaciers situated within the plateau and the surrounding Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region will be lost from ice melt by the end of the century. This level of melting would have major consequences for the surrounding population, as more than 1.5 billion people rely on freshwater that stems from the region and many local communities would be threatened by severe flooding and lake bursts.

The report, undertaken by more than 200 researchers, warns that climate action is necessary to prevent even further melting in this region and avoid worse disasters.

By Olivia Trani, EGU Communications Officer

Imaggeo is the EGU’s online open access geosciences image repository. All geoscientists (and others) can submit their photographs and videos to this repository and, since it is open access, these images can be used for free by scientists for their presentations or publications, by educators and the general public, and some images can even be used freely for commercial purposes. Photographers also retain full rights of use, as Imaggeo images are licensed and distributed by the EGU under a Creative Commons licence. Submit your photos at http://imaggeo.egu.eu/upload/.

May GeoRoundUp: the best of the Earth sciences from around the web

Olivia Trani May 31, 2019

Mirror mirror in the sea... Credit: Mario Hoppmann (distributed via imaggeo).

Drawing inspiration from popular stories on our social media channels, major geoscience headlines, as well as unique and quirky research, this monthly column aims to bring you the latest Earth and planetary science news from around the web.

Major story

The impact that humans have left on the planet’s landscape is so profound, that up to one million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction, many within decades, a new 1,500-page report backed by the United Nations has found. This serious decline in biodiversity would have far-reaching consequences for the planet’s ecosystems and the global human population.

The report, assembled by Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) with the aid of hundreds of scientists, is one of the most comprehensive reviews of the fate of Earth’s biodiversity. It follows up on an environmental assessment from 2005, but the new report goes further by analysing how biodiversity, climate and human wellbeing are connected to each other.

The results show that roughly 75 percent of land and 66 percent of marine areas have been “significantly altered” by human activities, including urban development, agriculture, logging, fishing, mining, and hunting. “The rate of global change in nature during the past 50 years is unprecedented in human history,” the authors of the assessment write. This kind of change has already taken its toll on Earth’s environment, as the average abundance of species in terrestrial ecosystems has dropped by at least 20 percent, mostly within the last century.

One million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction according to the #IPBES7 report. There is no life without #biodiversity. Our future depends on a #NewDealForNature & #ClimateAction. pic.twitter.com/3Ol3TsUDBj

— UN Development (@UNDP) May 23, 2019

The rate of global species extinction is already tens to hundreds of times faster than the average extinction rate over the last 10 million years and will only increase unless governments issue sweeping environmental measures measures, says the analysis.

Climate change poses as an additional threat to many species that rely on certain climate conditions for survival. The new report estimates that 2 °C of global warming above pre-industrial levels would put 5 percent of all species at risk of extinction. If global temperature rise goes past 4.3 °C, extinction risk would extend to 16 percent of Earth’s species.

The review also warns how this kind of loss in biodiversity would pose significant risks to human populations. “For a long time, people just thought of biodiversity as saving nature for its own sake,” said Robert Watson, chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, to the New York Times. “But this report makes clear the links between biodiversity and nature and things like food security and clean water in both rich and poor countries.”

Earth’s diverse environment provides several benefits and services to human communities, from absorbing carbon dioxide and filtering drinking water to being a source of tourism and medicine. Without the resources, services, and protections from our natural surroundings, humans could face a number of challenges, including increased food instability and environmental disaster.

Stumps on the valley in Madagascar caused by deforestation and slash and burn type of agriculture. Photo credit: Dudarev Mikhail/Shutterstock.com

The authors of the report note that we can still avoid severe loss in global biodiversity if nations adopt “transformative changes” to how humans interact with the environment, such as cutting down on wasteful consumption and pollution, reducing our agricultural impact, and curtailing logging and fishing activities.

David Obura, one of the main authors of the review, said to the Guardian: “We tried to document how far in trouble we are to focus people’s minds, but also to say it is not too late if we put a huge amount into transformational behavioural change. This is fundamental to humanity. We are not just talking about nice species out there; this is our life-support system.”

What you might have missed

This month has also produced some interesting new findings about the geology of our closest astronomical neighbor, the Moon.

The first mission to the far side of the Moon, led by the China National Space Administration, may have discovered pieces the Moon’s mantle exposed on its surface. If confirmed, the material would be the first unaltered samples of the Moon’s interior layer collected and could give scientists clues about the Moon’s early history.

China’s Yutu 2 rover moving across the far side of the moon. Credit: China National Space Administration

The materials were found by a rover deployed by the Chinese space agency as it was surveying a crater that scientists believe was formed by an impact event. If powerful enough, such a collision could have brought parts of the Moon’s mantle to the surface. By analysing data taken by the rover’s visible and near-infrared spectrometer, the researchers identified olivine and low-calcium pyroxene. These minerals haven’t typically been found on the lunar surface, suggesting that the samples may have come from the mantle.

“The findings lend weight to the theory that the Moon’s surface was once molten but separated into layers as it solidified, leaving largely lighter minerals in the surface crust and burying denser ones in its mantle,” Nature reported.

Meanwhile, a new analysis of decades old data from NASA suggests that the Moon may still be tectonically active today. About 50 years ago, Apollo astronauts installed seismometers on the Moon’s surface. The instruments picked up the rumbling of shallow moonquakes, but the activity couldn’t be properly explained at the time. Recently, scientists have found that a number of these moonquake were located within 30 km of fault scarps, cliff features that form when one side of a fault has thrust up or slipped down. The cliffs were identified in 2010 from images taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

This visualization of Lee Lincoln scarp is created from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographs and elevation mapping. The scarp marks the location of a relatively young, low-angle thrust fault. Credits: NASA/Goddard/SVS/Ernie Wright

The findings suggest that these quakes may have been triggered by these faults as a result of both internal heat escaping the Moon and Earth’s gravitational pull. This would imply that the Moon has more internal heat and is more tectonically active than previously believed. “Knowing more about that activity, including where the moon’s surface is still on the move, could help scientists identify where — and where not — to land future spacecraft,” says Science News.

Links we liked

The EGU story

This month we introduced Geoscience Days, a new EGU series of national public engagement events. The EGU Geoscience Days are events organised around Europe that aim to raise awareness of the Earth, planetary and space sciences to students, researchers, the wider public and national policymakers. The first event is taking place today (31 May) at the Romanian Academy in Bucharest, Romania.

The deadline to nominate the best deserving researchers for the EGU 2020 awards and medals is next month, on the 15th of June. To increase diversity in the group of EGU awardees and medallists, we encourage the EGU membership to consider gender, geographical and cultural balance when nominating outstanding Earth, planetary and space scientists at various career stages.

And don’t forget! To stay abreast of all the EGU’s events and activities, from highlighting papers published in our open access journals to providing news relating to EGU’s scientific divisions and meetings, including the General Assembly, subscribe to receive our monthly newsletter.

Bringing geoscience into prisons

Sara Mynott May 29, 2019

Philip Heron, one of the winners of a 2019 EGU Public Engagement Grant, shares his experience bringing geoscience education into prisons. Photo provided by Philip Heron

During the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, I caught up with Phil Heron, a Newcastle-born geodynamicist at Durham University, UK. Earlier this year he won an EGU outreach grant to engage young offenders with geoscience subjects and help improve their employability. He tells us how he started working in prisons and shares what we can learn from his experience.

How did the project start?

I realised there weren’t many science programs in England in prison. I wanted to try and build one that can be easily transported to different prisons. My original idea was to do a workshop or two on geodynamics, but then I saw there was a need for this – every person I spoke to, whether they were prison education officers or inmates was like “Ah, we love science.” There was a real appetite.

How do you make geoscience relevant to prison residents?

I was lucky enough to chat to inmates who had been part of a criminology course at Durham University called Inside Out. I could listen to their thoughts about my ideas, absorb their enthusiasm and their reservations. Some of the inmates said “the reason why the Inside Out criminology course works for us is because we’ve all committed crimes. It’s relatable.” That was a thunderbolt for me. How can I make volcanoes relatable? How can I make missions to Mars relatable?

I broke it down into thought processes. As scientists we have similar ways of thinking. What don’t we understand? What are we looking to solve? How do we get to a conclusion? By making experiments. It’s a thought process that we can apply, not just to science, but to everyday life. If you have a problem in your own life, you work through this way of thinking. It’s not necessarily about the scientific topics, but the scientific way of thinking.

The course is called Think Like a Scientist.

How can we make missions to Mars relatable? Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

What motivated you to run the course, and what would you like it to achieve?

I see the course as a pathway to education and rehabilitation. Our first course was in a women’s prison and there was overwhelmingly positive feedback – lots of enthusiasm for education.

This year, I received the EGU Public Engagement Grant and will be using these funds to run something similar at a young offender’s institution. I’m trying to link up with employers and show that analysis, communication – the skills students learn in Think Like a Scientist – are the sorts of things employers are looking for. Employability is that one key thing that helps reduce the chances of reoffending. I want the course to help increase employability for residents on release.

A lot of prison employability comes from practical, manual roles, but it doesn’t have to. There’s a need for people to do STEM careers. If residents like science, this could be a way forward for them once they’re released.

What is a typical day in the course like for residents?

The first five days are very similar – for a reason. You need to build trust and consistency to really embed into the class. The classes themselves are broken down into 15-minute segments to keep it varied and engaging. The inmates come in, the door is locked and the next movement of the prison isn’t for another 2.5 hours. It’s a huge amount of time to teach.

There is no PowerPoint or anything like that, but I’ll bring lots of handouts: things for the students to read, discuss or work through. We’ll go over big, impactful case studies, like the year without a summer that followed the Krakatoa eruption or the 2010 eruption in Iceland, which everyone remembers. I’ll start with smaller eruptions that everyone can relate to, before moving onto supervolcanoes and the like. It gives people some perspective.

Ash plume from Eyjafjallajökull volcano, Iceland Credit: NASA Goddard

What was the most enjoyable part of the project?

I’ve taught in various different environments over the past eleven years and the students I had in this course are by far the best I’ve ever had. It is a real joy to be in a room full of people who are just desperate to learn and to better themselves.

As a teacher, you up your game when the students are upping theirs.

What advice would you give to someone wanting to do outreach in prisons, or with a challenging new audience?

Listen, listen, listen. Spend a long time listening. I took everyone’s advice and really analysed it for a long time. Science really grabs people’s imagination. If it grabs your imagination then it will definitely capture that of someone in a challenging environment.

Science really is for everyone. I’d encourage anyone who wants to conduct outreach with anyone from a more unusual background to give it a try.

Phil is always looking to learn from others. If you are an employer in STEM, let him know what steps someone would need to take to pursue a career in science after release. These practical tips will help support his work with prison residents and young offenders.

Interview by Sara Mynott, EGU Press Assistant