The Next 50 Years of Water Resources Research

graphic depicting the 50th anniversary special collection from the American Geophysical Union's Water Resources research journal

By D. Scott Mackay, Professor, Department of Geography and Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences at the University at Buffalo (the State University of New York) and Editor, Water Resources Research “Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink,” wrote Samuel Taylor Coleridge in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a story about a journey spanning … Read more

An Emerging Bipartisan Recognition of Climate Change

image of the US Capitol building

Once upon a time, in a city named after America’s first president, science enjoyed broad bipartisan support, including the biomedical, geophysical, environmental, and social sciences. The scare of Sputnik not only inspired American space exploration in the 1950s and 1960s, but also reinforced a commitment to basic research in many disciplines, which paved the way … Read more

The U.S. National Space Weather Strategy and You

By David Sibeck (NASA/GSFC), President, Space Physics and Aeronomy Section While the effects of most space-weather events are not as immediately recognizable as floods, hurricanes, or tsunamis, they can be just as detrimental. Extreme space-weather events could cause prolonged losses of electrical power that would be incredibly destructive to the lives and livelihoods of millions … Read more

Protecting Academic Freedom and Holding Ourselves Accountable

Update (3 March 2015): In the last few days we have received several comments regarding the situation with the Natural Resources Committee, and as such, I want to expand a bit on what I previously wrote here. AGU unwaveringly supports a scientist’s right to academic freedom, and nothing in my previous post should be interpreted … Read more

AGU Names Editor for New Journal, Earth and Space Science

I am delighted to announce that John Orcutt, a distinguished professor of Geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and former president and General Secretary of AGU, will serve as the inaugural editor of our newest open access journal, Earth and Space Science. Over the summer John will recruit the editorial team. The … Read more

The Value of Science and the Benefits of Investing

chart displaying trends in federal r&d funding

As I sat down to compose this post, the irony of the situation was striking to me. A few weeks ago, AGU and NASA released a press statement regarding new findings of serious water decline in the Colorado River Basin, potentially posing an even greater threat to water availability in the West than previously thought. … Read more

Celebrating the Power of Science

Have you ever stopped to think about what AGU’s more than 62,000 members represent? With a crowd that large, there’s bound to be some variety, right? We have members hailing from 142 countries around the world. They represent the public and private sectors, conduct research at academic institutions and government agencies, and work for Fortune … Read more