European Geosciences Union
Division on Cryospheric Sciences
President: Olaf Eisen (cr@egu.eu)
Deputy President: Carleen Tijm-Reijmer
(c.h.tijm-reijmer@uu.nl)
The Cryosphere are those parts of the Earth and other planetary bodies that are subject to prolonged periods of temperatures below the freezing point of water. These include glaciers, frozen ground, sea ice, snow and ice. One of the main aims of the EGU Division on Cryospheric Sciences is to facilitate the exchange of information within the science community. It does so by organizing series of sessions at the annual EGU assembly, and through the publishing of the open-access journal `The Cryosphere’. The division awards the Louis Agassiz medal for outstanding contributions to the science of the cryosphere.
The 2018 Louis Agassiz Medal is awarded to Frank Pattyn for his unsurpassed contributions to the understanding of large-scale ice-sheet dynamics and his leadership in the internationally coordinated efforts to improve ice-sheet models.
The 2017 Louis Agassiz Medal is awarded to Eric Rignot for fundamental innovations in the remote sensing of glacier flow, leading to the first assessments of the mass balance of the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland.
The 2017 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award is awarded to Ricarda Winkelmann for her innovative contributions to glaciology and the study of the interactions between climate and glaciation.
The 2017 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Awards is awarded to Flavien Beaud Numerical modelling of esker formation in semi-circular subglacial channels
The 2017 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Awards is awarded to Louis Quéno Forecasting and modelling ice layer formation on the snowpack due to freezing precipitation in the Pyrenees
On 22 March 2018, large amounts of Saharan dust were blown off the Libyan coast to be further deposited in the Mediterranean, turning the usually white snow-capped Mountains of Turkey, Romania and even Caucasus into Martian landscapes. As many people were struck by this peculiar color of the snow, they started documenting this event on social media using the “#orangesnow hashtag”. Instagram and twitter are fun, but satellite remote sensing is more convenient to use to track the orange snow …
Next Tuesday (19th June) the POLAR18 Open Science Conference kicks off in Davos, Switzerland. We have put together a quick guide about events that might be of interest to you during the week! Conferences are about the science, of course, but the social side is just as important 🙂 What is POLAR18? The eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that the POLAR18 conference is, in fact, a collection of different meetings held between the 15th-26th June, it’s quite confusing at …
Many polar scientists who have traveled to Svalbard have heard several times how most of the stuff there is the “northernmost” stuff, e.g. the northernmost university, the northernmost brewery, etc. Despite hosting the four northernmost cities and towns, Svalbard is however accessible easily by “usual-sized” planes at least once per day from Oslo and Tromsø. This is not the case for the fifth northernmost town: Qaanaaq (previously called Thule) in Northwest Greenland. Only one small plane per week reaches the …
Early career scientists studying polar climate are one lucky group! The 29 young scientists who took part in the 10 day Polar Prediction School this year were no exception. They travelled to Arctic Sweden to learn and discuss the challenges of polar prediction and to gain a better understanding of the physical aspects of polar research. The Year of Polar Prediction The Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) was launched on May 15th 2017; a large 2 year project that ‘aims …
The deadline to nominate brilliant scientists for the EGU 2019 awards and medals is this month, on the 15th. To increase diversity in the group of EGU awardees and medallists, we encourage the EGU membership to consider gender, geographical and cultural balance when nominating outstanding Earth, planetary and space scientists at various career stages. Other important dates to keep in mind are 3 June, the deadline for submitting your feedback on the EGU 2018 General Assembly, and 18 June, the deadline for presenting authors at the meeting to submit their presentations to our online repository. Also of highlight is the call for proposals for training schools and conference series, opening on Friday (check egu.eu then). We will be launching two new EGU conference series, named in honour of two female scientists.