EGU General Assembly 2010

Hot topics at the EGU 2010 General Assembly include the Climate Change Debate, the Haiti and Chile earthquakes, energy, life on Early Earth, biosphere-atmosphere interaction, and space weather.

The scientific programme includes sessions on:

• The contribution of geoscientists to the development of sustainable societies.
  
• Changing monsoon systems.
  
• The air quality of megacities.
  
• Methane in the Russian continental shelf.
  
• Methane releases from the oceans during rapid climate change events.
  
• European climate of the last millennium.
  
• Bringing life to the desert: storm tracks, climate change, wadi water and farming at the dawn of civilisation.
  
• Arctic sea ice and global warming.
  
• Evidence of solar effects on climate.
  
• Glacier and climate changes in the Himalayas.
  
• Gas-hydrates, petroleum and coal - Resources and hazards.
  
• Scientists plan to cover the Earth with an electronic skin to monitor the environment.
  
• Earthquakes precursors.
  
• Extreme sea waves.
  
• The impact of natural hazards on urban areas and landscape.
  
• Predicting the contribution of collapsing ice sheets to sea-level rise.
  
• Habitability in the Solar System: Mars, early Earth, and the outer Solar System.
  
• Mammal ecology of the last 50,000 years.
  
• Space Weather and its Effects on Terrestrial and Geo-Space Environments.

More interesting topics and sessions can be found here: http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2010/special_interests

Press conferences

We have not finalised the press conference programme yet, but the following press conferences are in the pipeline:

• Lessons learnt from the Haiti earthquake and the Chile earthquake and tsunami.
  
• The Great Climate Change Debate.
  
• Hydrologists' views on climate change.
  
• New insights in earthquake mechanisms from studies in Peru and Chile.
  
• Space weather and the development of radiation shields for spacecraft.
  
• Life on Early Earth.
  
• How do organisms and the Earth's atmosphere influence each other?
  
• Prehistoric man-made soils and soils in modern cities.

Provided by European Geosciences Union