My fourth and fifth days at the AGU Fall Meeting involved dashing between multiple sessions to take in a number of talks on (surprise, surprise) aerosols! The main strand running through them from my point of view was how there are major efforts to construct large datasets of aerosol properties that can be used to …[Read More]
Latest posts
Reading Past Sea Ice Coverage from strange red blobs!
Sea ice is an interesting phenomenon, especially to a Canadian. The question around this time of year that always arises in the news is will this be a big sea ice year, will we set a new record low, high (haha) or will it be just average? This is a question that gets a lot …[Read More]
…Ever thought about joining a research cruise?
Over the next month Jens Weiser, a masters student at the University of Bremen, will be reporting from a research cruise off southern Africa. This week he’s setting the scene and setting seaward with 14 other young scientists in a bid to understand more about the region’s biology and geology… When I started my Masters …[Read More]
Friday Photo (109): Souvenir Rocks
Himalayan rocks are peddled to tourists in Leh, Ladakh. Credit: Rosalie Tostevin, Geology for Global Development Leh, Ladakh, 2013
4th European Conference on Permafrost (EUCOP)
Marc Oliva The big European conference on frozen soils is approaching fast. The EUCOP conference will take place in Évora (Portugal) from 18 to 21st June 2014. At the conference website (http://www.eucop4.org) you can find all the information about sessions and key-note speakers, the online abstract submission form, details on the programme, registration fees, stipends …[Read More]
AGU 2013 Day 3: secondary organic aerosol – animal or vegetable?
My third day at the AGU 2013 Fall Meeting involved lots of talks on one of the trickiest parts of aerosol science – secondary organic aerosol (SOA). We’ve known for several years now that SOA is ubiquitous across the globe and it is often the most dominant aerosol chemical species in many environments and this …[Read More]
Registration for the EGU 2014 General Assembly is open!
The EGU General Assembly brings together geoscientists from all over the world to one meeting that covers all disciplines of the Earth, planetary and space sciences. This year, the conference will have a theme: The Face of the Earth. Much like a human face, our planet exhibits a huge diversity of shapes and forms. This …[Read More]
Cracked soils
Vertisols are dark clayey soils that show cracks at least during some part of the year. Normally, Vertisols are found in depressions or plain areas under subhumid or semiarid climate, with a wet and a dry season. Although climax vegetation is savanna, grassland or woodland, Vertisols are very fertile, so that agricultural use is very …[Read More]
Wikipedia is evil
Yesterday, I had to write the exam questions for my students of Soil Science in the Faculty of Biology. As there are many more than 300, because of the facilities that my government gives to the fulfilment of the Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area (ironic mode activated), I usually make multiple choice tests …[Read More]
AGU 2013 day 2: aerosol emissions, climate & the IPCC
My second day at the AGU 2013 Fall Meeting revolved around more short-lived climate forcers, which I wrote about yesterday and also a broader session on the results from the recent IPCC Working Group 1 report. The latter was an opportunity for the community to quiz some of the lead authors of the report on a …[Read More]