New EGU partnerships 20 May 2014 The EGU has signed Memoranda of Cooperation with the Geological Society of America and the International Union of Forest Research Organizations. Read more
Looking back at the EGU 2014 General Assembly 13 May 2014 From 27 April to 2 May, Earth, planetary and space scientists from all over the world got together in Vienna for the EGU 2014 General Assembly. The meeting, which for the first time had a theme (The Face of the Earth), was rich in scientific achievements, international discussions and interesting new features. With over 15,000 presentations and close to 12,500 participants from 106 countries, it was also the largest to date. Read more
Welcome to the new EGU Vice-President and three new committee chairs! 13 May 2014 At the EGU 2014 General Assembly, Hans Thybo was inaugurated as EGU Vice-President while Nicholas Arndt, Gerrit de Rooij and Hubert H.G. Savenije became the new chairs of the Outreach, Programme and Publications Committees, respectively. Read more
EGU 2014 General Assembly: Media advisory 4 – On-site registration, press conferences streamed online Press release 22 April 2014 The General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU), a meeting with over 11,000 scientists that covers all disciplines of the Earth, planetary and space sciences, is taking place next week (27 April – 2 May) in Vienna, Austria. Interested journalists can register on-site free of charge. Those who cannot make it to Vienna, can watch press conferences remotely through a webstreaming link. Media briefings include presentations on the latest news from the Cassini mission and an update from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Other events of interest include debates on mining and geoengineering, which will also be streamed online. Read more
EGU 2014 General Assembly: Media advisory 3 – Full press conference schedule, online registration closing Monday Press release 26 March 2014 The schedule of press conferences at the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU), which includes a briefing on the latest news from the Cassini mission and an update from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is now available. The meeting, which attracts over 11,000 scientists from all disciplines of the Earth, planetary and space sciences, will also feature great debates on mining and geoengineering. Journalists interested in attending should register online by Monday. The event is taking place on 27 April – 2 May 2014 at the Austria Center Vienna. Read more
Famous paintings help study the Earth’s past atmosphere Press release 25 March 2014 A team of Greek and German researchers has shown that the colours of sunsets painted by famous artists can be used to estimate pollution levels in the Earth’s past atmosphere. The results are published today in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. Read more
Job opportunity at the EGU Executive Office: Communications Officer 18 March 2014 We are seeking to appoint a Communications Officer to work with the EGU Media and Communications Manager in maintaining and further developing media- and science-related communications between the EGU and its membership, the working media and the public at large. Read more
EGU 2014 General Assembly: Media advisory 2 – Meeting programme online, provisional press conference topics Press release 13 March 2014 The programme for the 2014 European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly is now online. The meeting attracts over 11,000 scientists from all disciplines of the Earth, planetary and space sciences. This year’s conference features debates on mining and geoengineering, as well as Union sessions on ‘The Face of the Earth’ (the theme of this year’s meeting) and lessons learned from the IPCC’s findings. Press conferences will include presentations on ‘The 10 years of Cassini at Saturn’ and ‘The Anthropocene: are we living in the age of humans?’, among other topics. The event is taking place on 27 April – 2 May 2014 at the Austria Center Vienna. Read more
Obituary: Peter Fabian (1937 – 2014) 13 March 2014 Peter Fabian, the first EGU President, passed away on 11 March at the age of 76. Read more
New edition of GeoQ out now! 3 March 2014 This issue of the EGU quarterly newsletter is dedicated to The Face of the Earth, the theme of this year’s General Assembly. A special contribution from the EGU President and the EGU Programme Committee Chair at the start of the issue informs readers about this theme and what will be different at this year’s meeting. Read more
Greenland’s fastest glacier reaches record speeds Press release 3 February 2014 Jakobshavn Isbræ (Jakobshavn Glacier) is moving ice from the Greenland ice sheet into the ocean at a speed that appears to be the fastest ever recorded. Researchers from the University of Washington and the German Space Agency (DLR) measured the dramatic speeds of the fast-flowing glacier in 2012 and 2013. The results are published today in The Cryosphere. Read more
Imaggeo Photo Competition 29 January 2014 The fifth annual EGU photo competition opens on 1 February. Up until 1 March, every participant pre-registered for the General Assembly can submit up three original photos and one moving image on any broad theme related to the Earth, planetary, and space sciences. Read more
Communicate Your Science Video Competition 29 January 2014 Want to communicate your research to a wider audience and try your hand at video production? Now’s your chance! Young scientists pre-registered for the EGU General Assembly are invited to take part in the EGU’s first ever Communicate Your Science Video Competition! Read more
Ancient forests stabilised Earth’s CO2 and climate Press release 23 January 2014 UK researchers have identified a biological mechanism that could explain how the Earth’s atmospheric carbon dioxide and climate were stabilised over the past 24 million years. When CO2 levels became too low for plants to grow properly, forests appear to have kept the climate in check by slowing down the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The results appear in Biogeosciences. Read more
EGU 2014 General Assembly: Media advisory 1 – Media registration now open Press release 13 January 2014 The latest research in Earth, planetary and space sciences will be presented at the 2014 General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in Vienna, Austria, from 27 April to 2 May. The meeting, the largest geosciences conference in Europe, brings together over 11,000 researchers from all over the world. Read more
Sybille Hildebrandt and Chelsea Wald awarded EGU Science Journalism Fellowship Press release 10 January 2014 The European Geosciences Union (EGU) has named journalists Sybille Hildebrandt and Chelsea Wald as the winners of its 2014 Science Journalism Fellowship for projects on palaeontology, geochemistry and the origin of animal life, and on soil sciences and forensics, respectively. Read more
Europe to suffer from more severe and persistent droughts Press release 9 January 2014 By the end of this century, droughts in Europe are expected to be more frequent and intense due to climate change and increased water use, a new Hydrology and Earth System Sciences study concludes. Read more
Earth System Dynamics indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded 7 January 2014 Thomson Reuters has announced that they will include Earth System Dynamics (ESD) in their Web of Science/ISI listings following the completion of their assessment of the quality, characteristics and flow of papers published in the journal since its launch in 2010. Read more
Submit your abstract and register for the EGU 2014 General Assembly 2 January 2014 The EGU 2014 General Assembly, which is taking place in Vienna, Austria from 27 April-2 May, will bring together geoscientists from all over the world to one meeting covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary and space sciences. Read more
Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics becomes interactive! 18 December 2013 Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics (NPG), an EGU-Copernicus publication, is transitioning from an open access journal with a traditional review process into an interactive open access journal applying the public peer-review and interactive public discussion concept. Read more
New EGU journal SOIL to be launched at the 2014 General Assembly 17 December 2013 SOIL, the newest interactive and open access journal of the EGU, is dedicated to the publication and discussion of high-quality research in the field of soil system sciences. It will open for submissions in May 2014, following the journal’s official launch at the EGU 2014 General Assembly. Read more
9th EGU Alexander von Humboldt International Conference 16 December 2013 The next AvH conference is on High Impact Natural Hazards Related to the Euro-Mediterranean Region, and will be held in Istanbul, Turkey, from 24–28 March 2014. The deadline for abstracts is 31 January 2014. Read more
GIFT teachers and EGU scientists: apply now to take part in I’m a Geoscientist, get me out of here! 13 December 2013 The EGU are funding a European-wide educational project to provide school students with the opportunity to meet and interact with real scientists. Read more
Welcome to a new Imaggeo! 9 December 2013 The EGU’s open access geoscience image repository has a new and improved home. Visit the all new Imaggeo at imaggeo.egu.eu. Read more
Geoengineering approaches to reduce climate change unlikely to succeed Press release 5 December 2013 Two German researchers used a simple energy balance analysis to explain how the Earth’s water cycle responds differently to heating by sunlight than it does to warming due to a stronger atmospheric greenhouse effect. Further, they show that this difference implies that reflecting sunlight to reduce temperatures may have unwanted effects on the Earth’s rainfall patterns. The results are now published in ESD. Read more
Results of the EGU Autumn 2013 elections 2 December 2013 The EGU election for the next EGU president/vice-president and general secretary closed on 01 December. The results are now available on the Elections page of this website. The EGU is thankful to all those who used their voting right. Active participation in elections ensures continuation of the well-established bottom-up structure of our Union! Read more
New edition of GeoQ out now! 2 December 2013 The December issue of the quarterly newsletter of the European Geosciences Union is dedicated to climate. Of highlight are the articles on new climate research and a piece from the European Commission Directorate-General for Climate Action. Read more
Using moving cars to measure rainfall Press release 28 November 2013 Drivers on a rainy day regulate the speed of their windshield wipers according to rain intensity: faster in heavy rain and slower in light rain. This simple observation has inspired researchers from the University of Hanover in Germany to come up with ‘RainCars’, an initiative that aims to use GPS-equipped moving cars as devices to measure rainfall. The most recent results of the project are now published in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. Read more
GIFT goes to Africa! Applications now open for Southern African teachers to participate in the 2014 workshop 27 November 2013 Southern African teachers can now apply to participate in the first UNESCO-EGU-ESA Geosciences Information for Teachers (GIFT) workshop. Selected teachers will receive a travel/hotel stipend and free registration to the meeting, which is taking place in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, on 26–28 February 2014. The topic of the workshop is Climate Change and Human Adaptation. Read more
EGU2014: Applying for financial support to attend the General Assembly 12 November 2013 A limited amount of the overall budget of the EGU General Assembly is reserved to assist young scientists and established scientists from low and lower middle income countries who wish to present their work at the meeting. Scientists who wish to apply for financial support should submit an abstract, on which they are first authors, by 29 November 2013. Read more
How pigeons may smell their way home Press release 5 November 2013 Homing pigeons, like other birds, are extraordinary navigators, but how they manage to find their way back to their lofts is still debated. To navigate, birds require a ‘map’ (to tell them home is south, for example) and a ‘compass’ (to tell them where south is), with the sun and the Earth’s magnetic field being the preferred compass systems. A new Biogeosciences paper provides evidence that the information pigeons use as a map is in fact available in the atmosphere: odours and winds allow them to find their way home. Read more
Voting for the next EGU president/vice-president and general secretary 5 November 2013 From now until 1 December 2013, EGU members can vote in the Autumn 2013 EGU Election. If you are an active member of the Union, you should have already received an email with a personalised voting link. Remember that active participation in EGU elections ensures continuation of the well-established bottom-up structure of our Union! Read more
The oldest ice core – Finding a 1.5 million-year record of Earth’s climate Press release 5 November 2013 How far into the past can ice-core records go? Scientists have now identified regions in Antarctica they say could store information about Earth’s climate and greenhouse gases extending as far back as 1.5 million years, almost twice as old as the oldest ice core drilled to date. The results are published today in Climate of the Past. Read more
EGU journals to display article-level metrics 15 October 2013 Copernicus Publications, the publisher of the EGU open access journals, has just launched article-level metrics (ALMs) for all its journals. Read more
EGU Science Journalism Fellowships (up to €5k) – call for applications Press release 15 October 2013 The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is offering fellowships for journalists to report on ongoing research in the geosciences. Successful applicants will receive up to €5k to cover expenses related to their projects, including following scientists on location. Read more
EGU announces 2014 awards and medals 14 October 2013 The EGU has named the 43 recipients of next year’s Union Medals and Awards, Division Medals, and Division Outstanding Young Scientist Awards. Read more
Terrestrial ecosystems at risk of major shifts as temperatures increase Press release 8 October 2013 Over 80% of the world’s ice-free land is at risk of profound ecosystem transformation by 2100, a new study reveals. “Essentially, we would be leaving the world as we know it,” says Sebastian Ostberg of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany. Ostberg and collaborators studied the critical impacts of climate change on landscapes and have now published their results in Earth System Dynamics. Read more
Tiny plankton could have big impact on climate Press release 13 September 2013 As the climate changes and oceans’ acidity increases, tiny plankton seem set to succeed. An international team of marine scientists has found that the smallest plankton groups thrive under elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. This could cause an imbalance in the food web as well as decrease ocean CO2 uptake, an important regulator of global climate. The results of the study, conducted off the coast of Svalbard, Norway, in 2010, are now compiled in a special issue published in Biogeosciences. Read more
Educators: apply now to take part in the 2014 GIFT workshop! 10 September 2013 The Geosciences Information For Teachers workshop is taking place on April 27–30 2014 at the EGU General Assembly in Vienna, Austria. The topic of the 2014 edition of GIFT is Our Changing Planet and the workshop will explore some of the recent complex changes of our environment, particularly in the framework of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Read more
Using digital SLRs to measure the height of Northern Lights Press release 6 September 2013 Scientific research doesn’t often start from outreach projects. Yet, Ryuho Kataoka from the National Institute of Polar Research in Tokyo, Japan, came up with an idea for a new method to measure the height of aurora borealis after working on a 3D movie for a planetarium. Read more
New edition of GeoQ out now! 2 September 2013 The September issue of the quarterly newsletter of the European Geosciences Union is dedicated to young scientists. Of highlight are the articles, on young researchers’ work and a whole new Young Scientists section. Read more
Resource site for young scientists launched 20 August 2013 Early career researchers make up a large proportion of the EGU membership and (graduate and undergraduate) students regularly make up about a third of General Assembly participants. With so many young scientists involved in the EGU, we wanted to produce something that caters for them – the young scientists’ website. Read more
EGU journal implements new requirement for authors to provide computer code of their models 20 August 2013 The EGU journal Geoscientific Model Development (GMD) has implemented some radical new policies in terms of requirements of the published papers. The changes are highlighted in an editorial recently published in GMD. Read more
Six new blogs join the EGU Blog Network 8 August 2013 The new geoscience blogs cover mineralogy, climate change and volcanology as well as the atmospheric, Quaternary and soil sciences. Like other blogs on the network, their aim is to put complex scientific research into context and share recent findings beyond the usual suspects, opening science up to a much wider audience. Read more
EGU election for president/vice-president and general secretary: propose a candidate 1 August 2013 The autumn 2013 election, where 2013 EGU members will be able to vote for the next president/vice-president and general secretary, is taking place from 1 November to 1 December. From now until 30 September, you are kindly asked to propose a candidate to either vacancy. Read more
Could planting trees in the desert mitigate climate change? Press release 31 July 2013 As the world starts feeling the effects of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide and consequent global temperature rise, researchers are looking for a Plan B to mitigate climate change. A group of German scientists has now come up with an environmentally friendly method that they say could do just that. Read more
Cluster spacecraft detects elusive space wind Press release 2 July 2013 A new study, published in EGU’s Annales Geophysicae, provides the first conclusive proof of the existence of a space wind first proposed theoretically over 20 years ago. Read more
New edition of GeoQ out now! 3 June 2013 The June issue of the quarterly newsletter of the European Geosciences Union is dedicated to the EGU 2013 General Assembly. Of highlight are the articles, on research published at the meeting, the letter from the Programme Committee Chair and interviews with GIFT teachers. Read more
GPS solution provides three-minute tsunami alerts Press release 17 May 2013 Researchers have shown that, by using global positioning systems (GPS) to measure ground deformation caused by a large underwater earthquake, they can provide accurate warning of the resulting tsunami in just a few minutes after the earthquake onset. Read more
Launching a new EGU interactive open access journal, ESurf 4 April 2013 Earth Surface Dynamics (ESurf) is the newest international scientific journal of the EGU. It is dedicated to the publication and discussion of high-quality research on the physical, chemical and biological processes shaping Earth’s surface and their interactions on all scales. Read more
