IPF Attends European Geosciences Union in Vienna
18.04.2008 - Other
The European Geosciences Union held its annual General Assembly at the Austria Center in Vienna from April 13th-18th. Approximately 8,000 scientists and graduate students from every corner of the globe and from a wide variety of disciplines within the earth sciences attended. Researchers and students presented their findings to their peers in oral and poster presentations, not only with the goal of bringing attention to the research they are conducting, but also in an attempt to obtain feedback and generate discussion. The assembly features keynote lectures and awards for distinguished scientists.
The cryospheric sciences were well represented at the conference. Researchers from a wide variety of research institutions and universities gave approximately 300 presentations on the Polar Regions and the cryosphere.
Some of the more noteworthy presentations on were also highlighted in press conferences given to the media. The conferences pertaining to the Polar Regions focused on a wide variety of topics, including:
- the recent breakup of the Wilkins Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula;
- how natural variation in the Arctic has the potential to trigger further reductions in Arctic sea ice cover, possibly leading to a situation where there is little or no summer Arctic sea ice sooner than many models used in the IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 4th Assessment Report are predicting;
- predictions from one group of British and Finnish researchers that sea levels will rise by 0.8m and 1.5m before the end of the 21st century due to record melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica (more rapid than predicted by models used in the IPCC's 4th Assessment Report);
- the rapid change being seen in outlet glaciers in Antarctica;
- the record snow melt in Greenland in 2007;
- the major contribution that Black Carbon particles (created by the burning of fossil fuels and biomass and transported to the Arctic via the atmosphere) plays in Arctic warming by reducing the albedo of snow;
- the findings from ANDRILL's recently completed second sediment coring site, which gave researchers more data to back up models describing how the climate changed and how ice cover has advanced and has retreated in West Antarctica since the Middle Miocene (14-17 million years ago).
