European Geosciences Union
Division on Geodesy
President: Johannes Böhm (g@egu.eu)
Deputy President: Annette Eicker
(annette.eicker@hcu-hamburg.de)
Traditionally geodesy is the science of the measurement and the mapping of the Earth’s surface. Since the surface is mainly shaped by the Earth’s gravity field the classical definition includes the Earth’s gravitational potential. Observing the Earth figure, the orientation and rotation as well as the gravity field, geodesy today provides spatial and temporal patterns of geophysical processes within the Earth system such as sea level rise, tides, melting of continental ice masses, changes in global water circulation and in the atmosphere or deformations of the solid Earth. Consequently, the geodesy division covers activities on the whole spectrum of modern geodetic Earth system modeling from the measurement systems to the investigation of geophysical processes.
The 2020 Vening Meinesz Medal is awarded to Willi Freeden for his pioneering work in combining a comprehensive mathematical theory with fundamental geodetic problems and advanced applications in Earth system sciences and global change studies.
The 2020 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Karina Wilgan for the development of new methods for the integration of GNSS delays, meteorological observations and numerical weather prediction models for applications in InSAR and GNSS.
The 2019 Vening Meinesz Medal is awarded to Tonie van Dam for pioneering work on the deformations of the solid Earth under a variety of surface loads and on their measurements using space geodetic observation techniques.
The 2019 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Benedikt Soja for original research and contributions to the fields of very long baseline interferometry and terrestrial reference frames.
The 2019 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to Christina Lück Using Swarm to derive global sea level budgets
The 2019 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to Philipp Zingerle High-resolution combined global gravity field modeling: Towards a combined d/o 10800 model
EGU2020: Sharing Geoscience Online, the Union’s first completely virtual meeting, is destined for the record books! In April, shortly after the in-person General Assembly was cancelled, EGU Programme Committee Chair Susanne Buiter described Sharing Geoscience Online as “an exciting opportunity to demonstrate if our members are interested in new models of interacting.”
The statistics show that EGU members resoundingly responded to what Buiter called a “moment of truth,” with more than 26,000 participants from 134 countries taking part in Sharing Geoscience Online’s 701 scientific sessions. The vast majority of the discourse occurred through the exchange of live text chats, which had a median of 92 (and a maximum of 796) participants per chat and featured more than 200,000 posted messages.
Sharing Geoscience Online also included ten livestreamed Great Debates and Union Symposia, half a dozen live and pre-recorded short courses, and several virtual press conferences. These were watched live by 7,000 people and have received an additional 19,000 views to date on the EGU YouTube channel, where they’ll remain available for your viewing pleasure.
Authors uploaded presentation materials to nearly two-thirds of the event’s 18,036 abstracts, and these plus the more than 6,000 comments made to them have been archived on EGUsphere, the Union’s new interactive digital repository.
Sharing Geoscience Online also featured a number of fun traditions, including inspiring artwork created by EGU’s two (virtual) artists in residence and kids’ “volcanic paint” masterpieces. The week also closed with the traditional Friday unveiling of the annual Imaggeo photo competition winners.
The virtual gathering did not include the annual EGU awards ceremony; the recipients of the 2020 honours will be recognised alongside next year's awardees during EGU 2021. All nominations for the 2021 medals and awards are due on 30 June 2020.
Sharing Geoscience Online would not have been possible without the large and dedicated group of volunteers who enabled the shift “from Vienna to virtual” in six short weeks. EGU extends its heartfelt thanks to all Sharing Geoscience Online participants and conveners and everyone who helped create this opportunity to connect the global geoscience community during unprecedented times. Your efforts are truly appreciated!