My top three talks from the AGU Fall Meeting

So I've been listening to a lot of the AGU Fall Meeting talks and there is a huge selection, ranging from hard core geology to more easily digestible topics such as social issues and communication in the Earth Sciences. Climate change is also a huge focus as you would expect. Here is my pick so far.

The Race to Understand a Changing Planet

Piers Sellers from NASA/GSFC gives an entertaining talk on biogeochemical modelling. This talk is well worth watching just to see the videos of the best and latest climate models of the Earth. These are the models that future climate predictions are based upon and include aerosols, weather and meltwater from areas such as Greenland. These geophysical models really are stunning, and make you realize how advanced the science has become. He also gives a bit of an insight into how climate predictions are made and from what sources the data is retrieved.

Union Frontiers of Geophysics Lecture - Professor Sir Bob Watson

The keynote address, from Sir Robert Watson from the Tyndall Center, was a fascinating and at times frightening, broad reaching address, on current climate data. He explains that we can essentially forget about the fantasy of a 2 degree warming world, in which all of the current economic response models are geared towards. According to him, projected emissions will have us on track for something resembling a 4 degree world by 2100. He then goes into some of the gory details. Highly engaging.

Ira Flatow, NPR Science. Science is Sexy.

This is a brilliant talk from Ira Flato who hosts “Talk of the Nation: Science Friday,”  He is the founder and president of a nonprofit company dedicated to creating radio, TV and Internet projects that make science "Sexy". I personally think science communication is one of the largest issues facing modern society if we are going to engage people's critical thinking and avoid the idiocracy scenario. Very encouraging talk and relates more to the communication of science, rather than the hard science itself.

Organic molecules everywhere!

So there are chlorinated organic molecules on Mars it seems?? Or is there? Wait.... uh.. well, probably not actually.

From the reports, it seems that dicholoro- and trichloro- methane was detected, which would certainly be interesting if it was Martian in origin. It is quite likely though, that the carbon from these molecules hitched a ride all the way from earth and got fired up in the SAM detector, where it reacted with the chlorine. The chlorine however is apparently martian in origin (isotope ratios?) and most likely resembling something like Mg-perchlorate hexahydrate which was detected by the pheonix lander in 2008.

While these are a relatively simple compounds, it isn't exactly what you would expect to find if there was remains of ancient life or even active biota in Martian soil. That is ofcourse assuming that said life bore any resemblance to earth life. Not to say that life on earth doesn't do some very wierd things from time to time but chlorinated methyl compounds like that would decompose into hydrogen chloride fairly quickly.

Either way... we certainly didn't put organic molecules on Mercury, that's for sure.

Strange times indeed...

AGU Fall Meeting is on.

The AGU Fall Meeting is in full swing during it's third day of lectures. The nice organisers have put a lof of effort into catering for 'virtual attendees' this year, so if you are like me and a visit to the AGU is just a hazy dream in the far off future, then you can access many of the talks through the virtual meetings page and recorded talks.

There is a veritable slew of talks on geochemistry, geology, natural hazards, climate science and space science delivered by the worlds best scientists. This year it seems there is a big focus on Earth System Science and an interdisciplinary approach to sustainability. Seems like the penny is finally starting to drop, which is great considering the mess we find ourselves in. I'm a bit behind viewings due to starting my summer scholarship this week, but I'll definately be watching a lot of these over the next week and posting up some favourites.

Curiosity XRD image

Curiosity has of late begun transmitting back data from it's investigations on mars. Only recently there was the first real evidence of flowing water in the form of conglomerate material that represented the fossil remains of an ancient streambed. All other evidence pointed to Mars once having liquid water, but no actual geological observations existed until now.

More recently, the first geochemical data began coming back. This image which looks like a sonar pulse or soething is the x-ray diffraction pattern from the first soil test using the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin). This analytical instrument is used to accurately identify the presence of various minerals in a sample based on the way that the atoms in the minerals crystal lattice are arranged. Somewhat like firing a laser beam at a mirror ball and watching how the beams bounce off.

And what did it discover?

A mixture of minerals that are consistent with basaltic source material, including feldspar, pyroxene and olivine aswell as glass derived from volcanic eruptions. Basically what they were expecting for surface sediments. So no real surprises yet from Cuiosity. But then it is only a few months in and hasn't gotten to the interesting parts of Gale crater yet, the exposed outcrops of Mount Sharp at it's centre. Once data starts being collected from these stratigraphic sequences, a picture of Mars' past should start to develop.

A geochemical background on climate change and ocean acidification

A short lecture video on the geochemistry of ocean acidification. The video is not great, but the lecture is short and easy on the chemistry. Often overlooked, ocean acidification is the silent partner to atmospheric CO2 concentration and does not get much attention these days.

The fundamental link between atmospheric carbon dioxide and marine shell formation is very closely tied. This relationship is quite sensitive and corals have narrow tolerances in temperature and pH conditions. Corals form the basis of the ocean food chain and without them, many species of fish would not be able to spawn.

In this video, Stockholm Resilience Centre researcher Kevin Noone provides a brief geochemical background on climate change and ocean acidification and the possible global effects on corals.

Cairns Solar Eclipse

So last week me and a few adventurous types set up to the palmer river near Cairns to witness one of natures most awe inspiring spectacles, a total solar eclipse. Actually, we were going there for the eclipse just as much as for the giant rocking festival dedicated in honour to it. An rediculously good  time was had with an entire weeks worth of rollercoaster emotions and amazement. Music, art, people, dancing, talks, films, fashion and culture were gently lashed upon us in the backdrop of far north queensland.... *sigh*.....


Anyway...

So it's actualy very hard to get a photo that captures the mood of an eclipse well it seems. Things are too exposed or under exposed and the sun is actually really just a little dot in the sky to a lens. However this one has been making the rounds and the photographer clearly seemed to know what he was doing. Totality occured at 6.37 am and it almost looked as though clouds on the horizon were going to spoil the show for us, but fortune favoured the crowd and we were treated to the following:

(credit to Michael Fitzgerald)

Aside from the dancing, partying and general sun worship, these things were the hilight for me. There were a few of them scattered around the dancefloor and I must have spent hours climbing, rocking, swinging and just hanging out on them. And they light up at night. Amazing. They were made of steel and bamboo with stury rope ladder mesh all around and over them. They should just remove shopping malls and replace them with these things.

Conference time of the year

There are a couple of large conferences coming up in the following month. The UN climate change conference COP18 in Quatar and the American Geophysical Union 45th Annual Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Like many others, I'm fairly sure that COP18 will little more than delegates from member countries politely agreeing to disagree on emission reduction targets. The AGU however has always attracted the worlds best earth and space scientists and I'm looking forward to this years talks more than ever. Incidentally, I had the opportunity of contributing a poster on some research I did earlier in the year, but exams and chemistry study in general got in the way as usual. Maybe next time...

I might link to one of my favourite AGU talks from past years though. This was from Richard B. Alley who takes you on a very interesting historical tour of carbon dioxide throughout the geological record. 4.6 billion years of Earths history gets condensed nicely into his 1 hour presentation which takes into account deep time, extinction events, the sun as a contributor to warming and the ice ages.

It was back in 2009 and he does a decent job of setting straight the mis-representations without making it the focus of the talk.

A bit heavy on the science at times, but hey.... either that, or more media circlejerk.

http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml