My first day at AGU 2013 revolved around sessions on short-live climate forcers, which are components in the atmosphere that have short lifetimes (compared to carbon dioxide for example) and generally warm the atmosphere. Reduction of these compounds, such as methane and black carbon, has been mooted as a way to reduce global mean temperatures in coming decades. This is summarised in the figure be ...[Read More]
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Four Degrees
Snacking on climate
ClimateSnack is a new initiative for early-career climate scientists around the world to improve their writing and communication skills. Snackers get to write tasty climate blogs and discuss them in a friendly and interactive environment. Marion talked to three members of the Imperial College London group for the latest issue of GeoQ! Good written and oral communication skills are quickly becoming ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Imaggeo on Mondays: Flying over flysch
In this week’s Imaggeo on Mondays, Ian Watkinson transports us to the Sulaiman Mountain Range and shows why it’s always worth bringing a camera in your hand luggage… This image is the view from the window of a plane crossing the Pakistan-Afghanistan border close to Zhob. I took it just before the weather closed in on a clear crossing of the Indus valley foreland and the entire Sulaiman Mountain ...[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
Monday paper: Modelling soil bulk density at the landscape scale and its contributions to C stock uncertainty
K.P. Taalab, R. Corstanje, R. Creamer, M.J. Whelan. 2013. Modelling soil bulk density at the landscape scale and its contributions to C stock uncertainty, Biogeosciences, 10, 4691-4704, doi:10.5194/bg-10-4691-2013 Abstract Soil bulk density (Db) is a major contributor to uncertainties in landscape-scale carbon and nutrient stock estimation. However, it is time consuming to measure and is, therefor ...[Read More]
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Science snap (#14): San Andreas Fault
As one of ~20,000 geologists flocking to AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, I’ve headed out a few days early to take in a few West Coast sights. For many, the Foggy City will always be synonymous with earthquakes. San Francisco is located right on the San Andreas Fault, which is part of a larger fracture zone marking the boundary between the North American and Pacific tectonic plates. In 190 ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Friday Photo (108): Damage from Cloudburst
The 2010 cloudburst in Leh, Ladakh, brought large amounts of mud, gravel and boulders into settlements on flood plains in Leh. The debris has still not been fully cleared, and here a house has been buried above window height in debris. Credit: Rosalie Tostevin, Geology for Global Development Leh, Ladakh, 2013
Soil System Sciences
Climate change effects on agriculture and land and water resources in Spain
E. Vargas-Amelin (Research Group International Political Economy, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia and Vrije Universiteit Brussel) and P. Pindado (Permanent Representation of Spain at the European Union. Ministry of Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs) have just published an interesting paper on climate change effects on agriculture and land and water resources in Spain. Accordi ...[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
December 5th is soil day!
In 2002, the IUSS proposed the 5th of December as World Soil Day. With the support of FAO, the 37th FAO Conference requested the UN General Assembly for its final endorsement. Soil day corresponds with the birthday of Bhumibol Adulyadej, King of Thailand. This date was proposed by FAO to honour him for his efforts in the promotion of soil science and soil resources conservation and sustainable man ...[Read More]
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
“I’m a scientist, get me out of here…!”
James Hickey is a PhD student in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. A geophysicist and volcanologist by trade, his PhD project is focussed on attempting to place constraints on volcanic unrest using integrated geodetic modelling. Having had just over a week to recover I can finally begin to look back on what were two incredible weeks of “I’m a scientist, get me out here” ex ...[Read More]
Polluting the Internet
A continent on fire
While preparing my poster for the upcoming AGU Fall Meeting, I downloaded some data on fire activity in South America for background on why we are interested in biomass burning in the region. I wanted to quickly check I had the data in the correct format, so I just plotted the coordinates of the fire counts without an outline of South America. I was surprised to see that the fire locations for Aug ...[Read More]