Each year, the EGU’s Science-Policy Pairing Scheme offers selected EGU members the opportunity to experience life inside the European Parliament. This Pairing Scheme aims to promote evidence-informed policymaking, provide the scientists involved with insights about how Members of the Parliament (MEPs) use research in their decision-making, and encourage stronger science-policy partnerships! For this month’s blog post, I had the privilege of interviewing Daniele la Cecilia and Stelios Karozis, the two selected candidates from EGU’s 2023 Science-Policy Pairing Scheme, to learn more about their e ..read more

Bikem – Welcome to GeoTalk! Can you tell us a bit about your research on climate change and its impact on terrestrial ecosystems? Thank you for having me. My current research focuses on forests and the impact of changes in climatic drivers on these ecosystems in terms of species composition, range shifts, and so on. I’m also curious about the impact that changes in the frequency and severity of disturbances, such as wildfires, may have on ecosystem health, species succession, and how these may feed back into the regional climate. To answer some of these questions, I use a process based dynamic ..read more

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) supports bringing science into the classroom at all learning levels, from schools to universities. Since the Higher Education Teaching grant programme launched in 2020, EGU has funded 24 projects to develop useful and freely available geoscience resources to university educators. This blog is part of a series of blogs highlighting the innovative and accessible resources developed by grant awardees to support teaching in higher education. Laboratory sandbox modeling for basin development The purpose of this teaching resource is to assist geoscience students ..read more

Alright, buckle up folks for this blog post, because we’re about to explore the wild ride of plate tectonics between the Iberian Peninsula (Eurasia plate) and North Africa (Nubia plate). These two plates are moving slowly at a moderate pace of 5-7 mm per year, which might not seem like much, but it’s enough to shake things up—literally! In a recent paper, published by our journal Solid Earth (SE), the authors explored these movements and noticed that some parts of the plates are squishing together (shortening), some are pulling apart (extension), and others are sliding past each other at weird ..read more

In June 2024, climate activists sprayed Stonehenge orange, demanding urgent action from the British government to phase out fossil fuel. This divisive act evoked a destructive yet often overlooked impact of climate change: the damage and destruction of cultural heritage. We are losing our cultural heritage at an unprecedented speed and scale to climate change, according to a 2022 report by the European Commission. Extreme climate events are coupled with insidious, deteriorative processes that threaten not only monuments but a deep pool of connected, often intangible characteristics that define ..read more

Each month we feature specific Divisions of EGU and during the monthly GeoRoundup we put the journals that publish science from those Divisions at the top of the Highlights section. For August, the divisions we are featuring are Natural Hazards, Climate: Past, Present & Future, and Seismology. They are served by the journals: Climate of the Past (CP), Earth System Dynamics (ESD), Weather and Climate Dynamics (WCD), Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS), and Solid Earth (SE). Featured highlights   Climate of the Past : Late Quaternary glacial maxima in southern Patagon ..read more

When working on legislation, policymakers often require scientific evidence or expertise to support their decision-making. Scientific information can help policymakers to identify any unintended consequences of a policy decision and access solutions that they may not have otherwise considered. In many cases, the information that researchers give to policymakers is a summary of a single study that they or their colleagues have written. However, if you want to have a policy impact, it’s more effective to provide policymakers with a knowledge synthesis – a summary that answers a policy question u ..read more

Rita, welcome to GeoTalk! Can you tell us a bit about what initially drew you to the field of coastal geomorphology and wetland ecosystems? Thanks for inviting me! My academic background is in environmental engineering, with a lifelong passion for coastal areas and geomorphology. The real inspiration comes from a constant desire to contribute to the conservation of natural ecosystems. Thus, at some point, I felt that to better contribute to this cause I should learn more about their dynamics. The geomorphological variability across different spatial and temporal scales is something that truly ..read more

‘What I wish someone told me early in my career’ is a new Geolog series that aims to provide valuable insights and guidance to early-career professionals within the European Geosciences Union (EGU) community. Each month, I will interview a staff member of EGU to share their personal career journey, experiences, challenges faced, and the tips they wish they had received earlier in their careers. This month, I am having a chat with our Events Manager, Jane Roussak (she/her). Jane Roussak joined EGU in 2022 as the Events Co-ordinator and has been promoted to Events Manager this year, overseeing E ..read more

I had the pleasure of interviewing Fergus McAuliffe, the Communications and Public Engagement Manager at iCRAG, University College Dublin in Ireland, to discuss his award-winning project, “Marine Geoscience for All.” During our conversation, Fergus shed light on the innovative ways his project aims to connect the public with marine geoscience through art, dialogue, storytelling, and education. Read on to discover more about Fergus’s vision and the impact of his ground-breaking work. Hello Fergus and thank you so much for taking the time for this interview. To kick off, could you tell me a litt ..read more