European Geosciences Union
Division on Cryospheric Sciences
President: Olaf Eisen (cr@egu.eu)
Deputy President: Carleen Tijm-Reijmer
(c.h.tijm-reijmer@uu.nl)
The Cryosphere are those parts of the Earth and other planetary bodies that are subject to prolonged periods of temperatures below the freezing point of water. These include glaciers, frozen ground, sea ice, snow and ice. One of the main aims of the EGU Division on Cryospheric Sciences is to facilitate the exchange of information within the science community. It does so by organizing series of sessions at the annual EGU assembly, and through the publishing of the open-access journal `The Cryosphere’. The division awards the Louis Agassiz medal for outstanding contributions to the science of the cryosphere.
The 2018 Louis Agassiz Medal is awarded to Frank Pattyn for his unsurpassed contributions to the understanding of large-scale ice-sheet dynamics and his leadership in the internationally coordinated efforts to improve ice-sheet models.
The 2018 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Awards is awarded to Fanny Brun Can ice cliffs explain the “debris-cover anomaly”? New insights from Changri Nup Glacier, Nepal
The 2018 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Awards is awarded to Sandra Vázquez-Martín Ground-based in-situ snowfall speed measurements: Microphysical properties of snowflakes
The 2017 Louis Agassiz Medal is awarded to Eric Rignot for fundamental innovations in the remote sensing of glacier flow, leading to the first assessments of the mass balance of the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland.
The 2017 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award is awarded to Ricarda Winkelmann for her innovative contributions to glaciology and the study of the interactions between climate and glaciation.
The 2017 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Awards is awarded to Flavien Beaud Numerical modelling of esker formation in semi-circular subglacial channels
The 2017 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Awards is awarded to Louis Quéno Forecasting and modelling ice layer formation on the snowpack due to freezing precipitation in the Pyrenees
The Arctic is one of the fastest changing regions on the Earth, where climate change impacts are felt both earlier and more strongly than elsewhere in the world. As an integral part of the Earth system, the Arctic is shaped by global processes, and in turn, Arctic processes influence the living conditions of hundreds of millions of people at lower latitudes. No one country or community can understand the Arctic alone. Big Arctic science questions require ambitious Arctic science – …
What do Chile and Jupiter’s moon Europa have in common? If you like astronomy, you may reply “space missions!” – Chile’s dry air and clear skies make it an ideal location for telescopes like the VLT or ALMA, while Europa’s inferred subsurface ocean will be studied by the upcoming mission to Jupiter JUICE, due to launch in 2022. But Chile’s high altitude Atacama desert and Europa’s frozen surface also have another feature in common, as you can see in this …
The Antarctic Peninsula is the ‘canary in the coalmine’ of Antarctic climate change. In the last half-century it has warmed faster than most other places on Earth, and considerable change has consequently been observed in the cryosphere, with several ice shelves collapsing in part or in full. Representing this change in models is difficult because we understand comparatively little about the effect of atmospheric processes on melting in Antarctica, especially clouds, which are the main protagonists of this Image of …
Perhaps the most enduring and important signal of a warming climate has been that the minimum Arctic sea ice extent, occurring each year in September, has declined precipitously. Over the last 40 years, most of the Arctic sea ice has thus been transformed to first-year ice that freezes in the winter and melts in the summer. Concern about sea ice extent and area is valid: since sea ice is a highly reflective surface, a reduction of its area has a …
Earlier in October, we announced the winners of the 2019 EGU awards and medals: 45 individuals who have made significant contributions to the Earth, planetary and space sciences and who will be honoured at the 2019 EGU General Assembly next April. We have also announced the winners of the Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Awards corresponding to the 2018 General Assembly, which you can find on our website. Congratulations to all!
This month, we also opened the call for abstracts for the EGU 2019 General Assembly. If you are interested in presenting your work in Vienna in April, make sure you submit your abstract by 10 January 2019, 13:00 CET. If you would like to apply for a Roland Schlich travel grant to attend the meeting, please submit your abstract no later than 1 December 2018. All 2019 EGU members will be able to submit abstracts to the 2019 meeting. With a few exceptions, only one abstract as a first author will be permitted. Please find more information on the EGU website.
In November, EGU 2018 members will have the opportunity to vote for the next EGU treasurer in the EGU Autumn elections. Check the elections page on our website for more information.