Highlights at a glance

08:30 – Mountain building, volcanism, climate and biodiversity in the Andes (US2: Room E1); Citizen science and open science (ITS3.1: Room N1); Imaging, modelling and inversion to explore the Earth’s crust and upper mantle (SM4.2: Room D3); Free and open source software (FOSS) for Earth and space science informatics (ESSI3.1: Hall X1); Energy meteorology (ERE2.1: Room 0.94)
10:45 – Studying the climate of the last two millennia (CL1.17: Posters Hall X5); Open session in geodesy (G6.3: Posters Hall X3)
14:00 – Past and future tipping points and large climate transitions in Earth history (US3: Room E1); Geo-hazard and risk assessment and mitigation in economically developing countries (ITS3.3: PICO spot 4)

Closing message from the EGU President

Another EGU General Assembly is coming to its end. It was really exciting to see thousands of presentations and the enthusiasm of younger generations. I am convinced that we are benefiting from an unprecedented lift of motivation, innovation, and interdisciplinarity.

Scientific associations are instrumental to address the global challenges that society is facing in the XXI century. They catalyse the passion and dedication of researchers, stimulate new ideas and provide the opportunities for sharing science and data. With the awareness of such essential role, EGU is striving to make its best to be innovative and forward looking. For the first time, we run a programme group dedicated to Science and Society (ScS). Under this umbrella, we hosted a very stimulating conversation between scientists, Ilaria Capua, and Mario Monti, which motivated the EGU to issue an appeal to European integration, together with Capua and Monti. We have debated controversial and challenging topics in Union sessions and great debates alongside the numerous oral, poster and PICO sessions. Finally, we inaugurated the activities of the new EGU Diversity & Equality Working Group, which organised stimulating sessions and events. Furthermore, we made efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of the meeting by encouraging travel by train and other best practices for a sustainable General Assembly. Aside from the meeting, we have established two new ‘science and society’ awards: the Angela Croome Award for Earth, space and planetary sciences journalism and the Katia and Maurice Krafft Award for geoscience outreach and engagement.

In line with the bottom-up philosophy of EGU, we are continuously seeking new ideas. We want all members to be more and more involved. Please contact your division president, or another Union officer, and find out how you can help shape the future of EGU and your community.

Alberto Montanari, EGU President

Mountain building, volcanism, climate and biodiversity in the Andes: 250 years after Alexander von Humboldt

This year marks the 250^th anniversary of the birth of Alexander von Humboldt, the intrepid explorer of the Andes and other regions and the most famous scientist of his time. This session will pay tribute to his legacy by reviewing the state of the art in studies of the coupled lithosphere – atmosphere – hydrosphere – biosphere system with a focus on the Andes.

US2: 08:30–12:15 Room E1

Past and future tipping points and large climate transitions in Earth history

This session aims to point out the most recent results concerning how a complex system as the climate of the Earth has undergone many tipping points and what is the specificity of the future climate changes. It will feature talks discussing advances in our record and modeling of the forces triggering and amplifying the changes of Earth climate and carbon cycle across spatial and temporal scales.

US3: 14:00–15:45, 16:15–18:00 Room E1

EGU open access journals as of March 2019. A new publication, Geochronology, launched this week.

Short courses

Open publishing with EGU (SC1.52: 10:45–12:30 Room -2.16)
Visualising science (SC2.7: 10:45–12:30 Room -2.62)
Social science methods for natural scientists (SC1.48: 14:00–15:45 Room -2.31)
Science communication on hard mode: risk, uncertainty, disasters and controversies (SC2.8: 14:00–15:45 Room -2.16)
Tales from the IPCC: From research to report (SC3.11: 16:15–18:00 Room -2.62)

Your highlights of this year’s General Assembly

“It is the biggest conference I have ever been to and I am overwhelmed by the programme. My favourite thing is that you always have several sessions at a time that you can attend and they are all very diverse. I went to two medal lectures and I really enjoyed them, especially the one about Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Palaeonotolgy (SSP).” – Patrick Oswald, University of Innsbruck (first-time attendee)

“I have been visiting [the EGU General Assembly] for many years. It is like a family: I met some of the colleagues, and now there are more and more new members in this family. All these young professionals are eager to help run EGU and also to present their own research and we build this platform to go beyond EGU and build a professional project all around Europe.” – Bernard Foing, European Space Agency

“The atmosphere here is very relaxed. It is not only about science, it is about creating this community.” – Maria Hieta, Finnish Meteorological Institute

Geo-hazard and risk assessment and mitigation in economically developing countries: Challenges and opportunities for innovation

Natural hazards and the associated risk are in some cases a major hindrance to economic and social growth in economically developing countries. This is particularly evident for urban areas, since rapid and uncontrolled urbanization in hazard-prone regions may result in a significant increase in risk due to insufficient spatial planning and to inadequate building practices. This session will profile the challenges faced in the developing world when doing assessments of natural hazard and risk and designing mitigation strategies.

ITS3.3/NH9.18/EOS4.4/HS11.20: PICOs / 14:00–15:45 PICO spot 4

Citizen science and open science: bridging the science-society-gap by finding emerging environmental issues and empowering citizens

Citizen science (the involvement of the public in scientific processes) is gaining momentum in several disciplines. This session will focus on successful approaches of working with citizen science and open science.It bridges the gap between a multitude of stakeholders in research, policy, economy, practice and society at large by finding emerging environmental issues and empowering citizens.

ITS3.1/SSS1.4/EOS3.2/BG1.21/ESSI3.8/HS11.32/NH9.22:
Orals / 08:30–12:30 Room N1
Posters / 14:00–15:45 Hall X1

Imaging, modelling and inversion to explore the Earth’s crust and upper mantle

This session will cover applied and theoretical aspects of geophysical imaging, modelling and inversion using both active- and passive-source seismic measurements as well as other geophysical techniques (e.g., gravimetry, magnetic and electromagnetic) to investigate the Earth’s crust and uppermost mantle.

SM4.2: Orals / 08:30–12:30 Room D3
Posters / 16:15–18:00 Hall X2

Free and open source software (FOSS) for Earth and space science informatics

This session will look at the role of FOSS in the geosciences with a special emphasis on the interoperability among established and developing FOSS tools within geoinformatics. The session will be a forum for the latest advances in FOSS-empowered research, for successful applications of existing FOSS tools for geoscientific tasks, as well as for new developments in geoscience-related to FOSS.

ESSI3.1: Posters / 08:30–10:15 Hall X1

Studying the climate of the last two millennia

This session, co-sponsored by the PAGES 2k project, aims to place recently observed climate change in a long-term perspective by highlighting the importance of paleoclimate research spanning the past 2000 years. It features presentations that provide insights into past climate variability, over decadal to millennial timescales, from different palaeoclimate archives (ice cores, marine sediments, terrestrial records, historical archives and more).

CL1.17: Orals / 14:00–15:45, 16:15–18:00 Room 0.14
Posters / 10:45–12:30 Hall X5

What to do in Vienna this weekend

Have coffee, Vienna style: experience the true delights of Viennese coffee at Cafe Prükel. Strong and delicious, and even better with a slice of your favourite cake http://www.prueckel.at/.
Immerse yourself in Austrian artwork: experience the work of Gustav Klimt, one of Austria’s most famous painters in a special exhibition on his work https://www.belvedere.at/Beyond_Klimt.
Explore the city by bike: one of the best ways to see Vienna is by bike and there’s no shortage of great tours around the city. Better yet, hire your own and take a trip along the Danube https://www.vienna-unwrapped.com/vienna-tours-by-bike/.
Seasonal markets – Easter: visit one of the seasonal Easter markets where you can watch artists at work, see Easter decoration from different countries and snack on Austrian specialities http://www.visitingvienna.com/sights/eastermarkets/am-hof-ostermarkt/.
Vienna Blues Spring – a musical festival: enjoy some of the best local and international blues musicians http://www.visitingvienna.com/entertainment/events/blues-spring/.

Highlights at a glance

Closing message from the EGU President

Mountain building, volcanism, climate and biodiversity in the Andes: 250 years after Alexander von Humboldt

Past and future tipping points and large climate transitions in Earth history

Medal lectures

Short courses

Your highlights of this year’s General Assembly

Geo-hazard and risk assessment and mitigation in economically developing countries: Challenges and opportunities for innovation

Citizen science and open science: bridging the science-society-gap by finding emerging environmental issues and empowering citizens

Imaging, modelling and inversion to explore the Earth’s crust and upper mantle

Free and open source software (FOSS) for Earth and space science informatics

Studying the climate of the last two millennia

Open session in geodesy

Energy meteorology

Meet EGU

Feedback meetings

What to do in Vienna this weekend

Photo Competition winners

EGU General Assembly 2020

About

The Assembly Online