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November 29, 2023
Advancing wetland restoration as a climate change mitigation strategy
By Robert Feder, AGU Fall 2023 intern. Wetland ecosystems have a tremendous capacity to sequester carbon owing to inefficient organic matter decomposition in waterlogged soils. Modern wetlands like peatlands have been accumulating carbon for millennia, thereby making wetland soils a major reservoir of stable carbon on Earth. Then, in three centuries, an estimated twenty-one percent (21%) of Earth’s inland wetlands were lost to drainage or conversion, with much of the …
March 9, 2023
AGU’s 2023 Policy Priorities
In 2019, AGU began developing annual policy priorities to help focus our advocacy work and speed up the advancement of important science policy and legislation. Our policy priorities reflect not only AGU’s broader strategic goals and current policy landscape, but also the needs and priorities of our members. To represent the diversity of AGU’s community, all within the Earth and space science community were encouraged to participate in a survey …
October 14, 2016
Crowdsourcing Geoscience: Transforming interest into data
As part of Earth Science Week, we’ll be highlighting different leaders in the geosciences – from research to education and community outreach. We are posting Q&A’s on The Bridge asking geoscientists about the work they do. Today’s theme is Geologic Map Day and one of our featured AGU members is Sudhir Raj Shrestha. Sudhir works at Esri as a Solution Engineer. He has a MS in both Physical Land Resource and Soil Erosion …
Mapping Earth’s History with an Eye on the Future
As part of Earth Science Week, we’ll be highlighting different leaders in the geosciences – from research to education and community outreach. We are posting Q&A’s on The Bridge asking geoscientists about the work they do. Today’s theme is Geologic Map Day and one of our featured AGU members is Margaret E. Berry. Margaret works for the U.S. Geologic Survey (USGS) and helps to create maps that reveal our planet’s intricate layers. She is part …
October 16, 2015
Making a Path for Geologic Maps
Today’s focus for Earth Science Week is Geologic Map Day. The goal of the day is to highlight the importance of maps and how they contribute to improving our quality of life on a daily basis. Maps have more uses than getting us from point A to point B; they are applied to tracking the spread of diseases and monitoring migration patterns, both producing significant public health and safety benefits. …
May 27, 2015
Should NASA be Studying the Earth?
This past spring, Congress took a number of steps that seemed to imply that NASA should be reprioritizing its focus away from the Earth Sciences. For example, during a hearing on March 12, 2015, some members of the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness suggested to NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden, Jr. that NASA should shift its attention from Earth Science to space exploration and research, which they suggested …
January 26, 2015
The State of the Climate, According to Obama
On Tuesday night, the president carried on the time-honored tradition of appearing before Congress and delivering the State of the Union address. So what exactly did he say? The President spent a full two minutes discussing the topic of climate change, which is pretty lengthy considering the totality of individual issues mentioned in a typical SOTU address. Notably, the president called out United States leadership in combating climate change: “In …
August 5, 2014
How Nuclear Waste Disposal Can Help Us Understand Debate Over Fracking
Remember when shale gas was the answer to our energy woes? It was touted as a cheap and plentiful energy source that would reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Industry experts promised jobs, depressed local economies looked to get boosts; with so much good to be had, extracting natural gas from shale looked to be a no-brainer.
August 1, 2014
Dropped cell phone calls become rain gauges in West Africa
A shaky cell phone connection during a rainstorm can be an annoying nuisance. But now scientists are showing that these weakened signals can be used to monitor rainfall in West Africa, a technique that could help cities in the region better prepare for floods and combat weather-related diseases.
July 2, 2014
Mining takes off for asteroids
WASHINGTON, DC – Space travel today is like taking a cross-country road trip from Seattle to New York City without stopping at a gas station. Rockets launched into space must carry all the fuel they will need to reach their destination, which limits the distance they can travel into the galaxy.
