Seven years ago on 11 March 2011, the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake ripped hundreds kilometers of fault northeast of the island of Honshu, spawning a 38-meter-high tsunami that devastated a 1000 km-long stretch of coastline that had been described in the 1700s by Bashō as the most beautiful in all Japan (Ehrlich, 2013). The meltdown … Read more
On 14 April, 2018, for the second time in as many years, the March for Science is occurring in communities across the globe. AGU is proud to again join as a formal sponsor of this worldwide event in support of science, and to offer direct support to AGU groups participating in local marches. Over the … Read more
This week marks the 19thannual National Groundwater Awareness Week, established in 1999 by the non-profit National Groundwater Association to bring public awareness to the water “beneath our feet.” The themes of this year’s awareness are “Tend, Test and Treat,” referencing the need to recognize the value and potential vulnerability of groundwater, the necessity of monitoring … Read more
This year, I decided to watch my carbon footprint so instead of driving to our off-the grid cabin for a long weekend, I took a bus. Bus connections are not perfect. So, the next thing I knew, I was standing in a museum looking at portraits of suffragettes and anti-suffragettes. The white dressed suffragettes stared … Read more
Today, President Trump unveiled his proposed budget for 2019. Included within this proposal are steep increases in defense spending and infrastructure, much of which comes at the expense of funding for the federal scientific agencies that provide the technical expertise to realize the President’s policy priorities. The NSF would be flat funded, receiving no increase … Read more
Not many ideas in Western culture have generated as much enlightenment and simultaneous division as the concepts Charles Darwin outlined in On The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man. The idea that variation and natural selection drive evolution is the main reason people get flu shots every year or need ramped up antibiotics … Read more
For the second time in five years, congressional and presidential impasses have resulted in a shutdown of the federal government. The repercussions of this shutdown destabilize scientific federal agencies that are essential to the nation’s economic stability, public health, and national security. The far-reaching costs of such a shutdown are very real. For example, in … Read more
As 2017 began with a new administration in Washington, D.C., there was evidence that we could expect to face serious challenges to science policy and the scientific enterprise; some have come to pass, and others have not. Throughout this tumultuous year, AGU has played a significant role both in addressing these far-reaching issues and supporting … Read more
As many of you may know, AGU has been working for the past several years to understand how our science structure could be expanded to better enable people to collaborate and connect to others with shared interests and goals. The Affiliation and Engagement Task Force investigated a wide variety of options that might better serve … Read more
By Bernhard Fleck (ESA SOHO Project Scientist, NASA/GSFC), Joseph Gurman (NASA SOHO Project Scientist, NASA/GSFC), David Sibeck (Past President, AGU Space Physics and Aeronomy Section, NASA/GSFC) The 2nd of December 2017 marks the 22nd launch anniversary of the European Space Agency (ESA) – NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). SOHO is the longest-lived heliophysics mission … Read more