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EGU22 Press Conference, May 2022 (Credit: EGU)

Media at the EGU General Assembly
Vienna, Austria | 23–27 May 2022 Press conferences

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European Geosciences Union

www.egu.eu

Press conferences

 

**All press conferences are open to registered on-site and virtual attendees. Each briefing will be live streamed so virtual attendees can interact with speakers on-site and online. If for any reason you experience technical difficulties during the press conference, we encourage you to disconnect and try logging back in again. Don’t worry if you're not able to log back in; we will finish recording the briefing and upload the entire press conference as a YouTube video on EGU’s channel.**

For on-site attendance: Press conferences will be held in the Press Center in Suite F on the ground floor (yellow level). Floor plans are available at the information desk at the entrance.

 

List of press conferences

Monday, 23 May
Tuesday, 24 May
Wednesday, 25 May

PC1 – COVID-19, haze, and ozone impacts on human health

Monday, 23 May, 15:00

What are we really breathing in every day? Air pollution is now an inescapable and growing public health problem. As of 2022, levels of air pollutants still exceed EU standards and the most stringent World Health Organization guidelines. In this press conference, journalists will hear of the change in population exposure to NO2 and particulate matter during the COVID-19 lockdown, the haze season crisis in Southeast Asia, elevated ground-level ozone concentrations and air temperature levels across Europe, and the possible effect of particulate matter pollution on COVID-19 spread in southern Europe.

Participants:

PC2 – Communities vulnerable to wildfires find ways to prepare

Tuesday, 24 May, 09:00

The rising rate of wildfires around the world is no anomaly: climate change and land-use change are projected to make wildfires more frequent and intense, with a global increase of up to 14% by 2030, and 50% by 2100. But what if we could predict the occurrences of wildfires and implement robust preparedness plans? This press conference examines the reliability of wildfire forecasting with an early warning system set up in the Brazilian Pantanal, assesses the physical vulnerability of buildings to wildfire (with a Physical Vulnerability Index (PVI)), and compares the flammability status of vegetation through estimation of dead fine fuel moisture content (DFMC).

Participants:

PC3 – Clues from the past: a Galapagos ‘whodunnit?’, Egyptian water woes, and Judean famines

Tuesday, 24 May, 11:00

From ancient mummies who coped with water rise and climate change, to mysterious events that led to the death of a German doctor, to the volcanic ‘triple event’ of the 160s BCE and the famine in Judaea – what do these seemingly unrelated events have in common? This press conference explores the various climatic pressures as catalysts of human historical events. Scientists will present their evidence on past and future scenarios of climate change, and ways to apply these learnings to mitigate food insecurity, flood risk, and present-day conflicts.

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PC4 – From food security to flooding, technological solutions to geoscience challenges

Tuesday, 24 May, 14:00

This press conference takes a closer look at the future of geoscience research and where it is headed in the coming decades. Journalists will hear about real-time flood forecasting in Germany, with the latest insights from the 2021 Ahr river flood; and explore the possibility of rehearsing disaster preparedness through video games. Additionally, flood risk simulations examine the link between sea level rise, storm surge and house market scenarios; and new research dares to ask: can we feed everyone without our modern infrastructure and industry?

Participants:

PC5 – To the boiling point: the far-reaching effects of climate change

Wednesday, 25 May, 11:00

A panel of experts comes together to dissect and predict the long-term effects of climate change: the impact of extreme weather events on mental health & well-being, the ideal distance to cool spots to build heat resilient urban areas, and a retrospective 25-year analysis that checks if European forests are seeing a shift in climate-related mortality. This press conference will also hear from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists who present the latest findings from Working Group II and III, with global solutions to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

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PC6 – Omnipresent plastics: mountain rivers to microscopic soils

Wednesday, 25 May, 14:00

The United Nations recently called for more action to protect marine and coastal ecosystems from plastic pollution. While the ecological effects of plastic pollution continue to be unmapped, unobserved and unexplored, this press conference sheds light on novel low-tech approaches to intercepting waste before it reaches the ocean, the effects of microplastics on hydraulic properties of soils, and first insights into the spatial pattern of macroplastic storage in a mountain river. Together these findings point to promising river cleaning actions and means for macro- and microplastic trapping.

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PC7 – Junocam and Citizen Science: NASA’s mission to Jupiter

Wednesday, 25 May, 15:30

Make ‘space’ for a dedicated press conference on NASA’s findings from its Juno Mission. Discover how a citizen scientist became involved with a cutting-edge mission to our solar system’s largest planetary inhabitant. During this briefing, NASA scientists will share the latest findings and pictures from Junocam and explain how others can become involved as citizen scientists. They will also delve into exciting observations of Jupiter’s moons Europa and Io, a close up of Jupiter’s poles, nightside lightning, and occultations, as well as mission plans going forward.

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