Women make up 50.8% of the worlds population, yet fewer than 30% of the world’s researchers are women. Of this percentage, BAME (Black Asia and Minority Ethnic) comprise around 5%, with less than 1% represented in geoscience faculty positions. The divide between women in the population and women in STEM needs to be addressed. Through a series of blog posts we hope to raise the voice of women in th ...[Read More]
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Climate: Past, Present & Future
The ocean floor is sinking under the weight of sea level rise
Sea level rise is one of most dreadful consequences of anthropogenic (caused by humans) global warming. It is estimated that the loss of coastal infrastructure alone would cost the global economy more than 1 trillion dollars per year by 2100 [1]. This number is based on climate models, but these are only as good as our current understanding of the sea level rise. Therefore, researchers are monitor ...[Read More]
Geodynamics
Interactive and Collaborative Virtual Reality Visualization for Geodynamics
Nowadays geodynamics can involve a lot of 3D data which has to be analyzed. This week Oliver Kreylos, a researcher with the UC Davis W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences (KeckCAVES) and the UC Davis DataLab, shows us an alternative to looking at 3D data or models on a 2D screen: looking at them in full 3D through virtual reality! One problem in studying Earth’s dee ...[Read More]
GeoLog
The Sendai Framework – a five year review
The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 is a set of agreed commitments for member states of the United Nations to act on the prevention of ‘new’ disasters and reduce existing disaster risk through the implementation of integrated and inclusive economic, structural, legal, social, health, cultural, educational, environmental, technological, political and institutional measures. T ...[Read More]
Geomorphology
Pandemics vs. Academia: How do German geomorphologists deal with teaching, research projects and online conferences during the COVID-19 pandemic?
– Authors: The German Young Geomorphologists (Renee van Dongen, Jörn Profe, Steffi Tofelde, Janek Walk, Mario Kirchhoff, Julian Trappe, Johannes Buckel, Stefan Haselberger, Simon Meyer-Heintze) – COVID-19 Pandemic has changed the world this year. We as scientists are affected by this pandemic, but we can mostly work from home and most importantly, we can conduct our jobs. Nonetheless, ...[Read More]
Seismology
Forensic Seismology: The Beirut Explosion
On August 4, 2020, the coast of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, was rocked by an explosion caused by the blowing up of 2750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate, a chemical used in fertilizers (Figure 1). It resulted in at least 181 casualties, 6,000 injuries and 10-15 billion US dollars in damage [Ref 2]. Footage of the explosion has circulated widely: a large fire near the port’s warehouses and an in ...[Read More]
Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences
NPG Paper of the Month: “Simulation-based comparison of multivariate ensemble post-processing methods”
The June 2020 NPG Paper of the Month award goes to Sebastian Lerch and colleagues for their paper “Simulation-based comparison of multivariate ensemble post-processing methods” (https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-27-349-2020). Sebastian Lerch is a researcher at the Faculty of Mathematics of the Karlsruhe Institute Technology (KIT). He has a background in mathematics and statistics, his resear ...[Read More]
Natural Hazards
Forests in danger: not only fires!
We often talk about forests for their importance in climate as a carbon sink and oxygen source. For their great role in the preservation of biodiversity, both for vegetation and as habitat for many animal species, for their potential in recreational activities. However, we do not talk a lot about forests in relation to natural hazards. Indeed, forests can be severely affected by natural hazards. T ...[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Climate Change & Cryosphere – A brief history of A68, the world’s largest iceberg
In July 2017, the world’s largest iceberg known as A68 calved from the Larsen C Ice Shelf, located in the western Weddell Sea, Antarctica. Since then, A68 has lost two chunks of ice, A68-B and A68-C, but still remains a giant after more than 3 years. How did it feel to be the greatest, A68? Being the greatest With a length of 175 km and being about 50 km wide, this giant iceberg also appropriately ...[Read More]
Tectonics and Structural Geology
Ana Margarida Neiva – A woman as hard as granite
Ana Neiva was born on May 7 1941 in Cedofeita, Porto, northwest Portugal – a city carved in granite. Her childhood and youth were spent in Coimbra, where her father worked. João Cotelo Neiva was an eminent geologist and professor at the University of Coimbra, one of Europe’s oldest universities. His influence was decisive for her interest in geology and her scientific career. ...[Read More]