Preprints and preprint servers have been proven to revolutionise and disrupt the standard approaches to scholarly publishing in many disciplines. Yet, the concept of preprints is new to many researchers in Earth Sciences. In this townhall we will introduce the general concepts of preprints and preprint servers and their benefits for the researcher, illustrating this with a demonstration of EarthArXiv, a community-led preprint server. The general introduction will be followed by an interactive discussion on preprints, the exchange of experiences and an outlook to the future of publishing.

In December 2017, the UN General Assembly proclaimed the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). This decision represents a consensus by the global community on the importance, necessity and key role of ocean science and observations for ocean stewardship and society as a whole. The main motivation is to support efforts to reverse the cycle of decline in ocean health and create improved conditions for sustainable development of the ocean, seas and coasts.

The objectives of the Decade are:
(i) Knowledge of the ocean system
(ii) Evidence for ecosystems-based management and blue economy
(iii) Preparedness, response to and mitigation of ccean-related hazards
(iv) Cooperation in observation, data and other infrastructure
(v) Scientific and technical capacity and education
(vi) Enhanced cooperation, coordination, and communication.

It is important that the Decade builds recognition and engagement from within the Ocean Sciences community. This Town Hall seeks to raise awareness of the opportunities presented by the Decade, and to encourage the participation of EGU scientists in the planning stages of the Decade. The first half will present the Road Map for the planning process, and the second half will be an open discussion of ways in which ocean scientists in general, as well as the EGU Ocean Sciences Division, can work together to make the Decade a success.

Scientific drilling has transformed the understanding of our planet by addressing some of the most fundamental questions about Earth´s dynamic history, processes, and structure, and by opening up new lines of inquiry. Understanding climate, sea-level and environmental changes, geohazards, natural resources, the structure and evolution of the Earth’s crust and the nature and extent of the deep biosphere all require having access to information recorded in subsurface layers.

Two major and complementary international programs undertake drilling for the scientific community: IODP (International Ocean Discovery Program) and ICDP (International Continental Scientific Drilling Program), in oceanic and continental environments respectively. This Townhall meeting will be the opportunity to share our views on exciting challenges to take up for a better understanding of the Earth system and its changing environment and to network with colleagues.

The EGU General Assembly is the largest geoscience conference in Europe, attracting towards 15,000 participants. This large number of attendees implies a substantial environment impact, caused by travel, accommodation, food, and of course conference organisation.

In this Townhall meeting we will give information on measures taken so far by the EGU to reduce the environmental footprint of the General Assembly. We would then like to solicit suggestions for ways forward to further reduce the carbon footprint of the conference. We explicitly devote ample time to a discussion on new green measures.

Measures taken over the last years include:
- The posibility to offset the CO2 emissions from travel upon registration to the General Assembly. In 2018 nearly 17,000 euro was raised which was donated to a Carbon Footprint project that aims to reduce deforestation in Brazil.
- EGU encourages to travel by train to Vienna when possible. In 2018 the Swiss Federal Railways SBB offered a discount to GA attendees and EGU continues negotiations with other railway companies.
- The Austria Center Vienna (ACV) has a number of green measures in place, including energy-saving LEDs, a solar array to heat the water used in the kitchens and toilets, and working with an in-house catering company compliant with green standards.
- EGU no longer offer single-use water bottles at coffee breaks. Instead water fountains throughout the building can be used to fill multiple-use bottles.
- In 2019, the paper programme book will be replaced by online alternatives.

Public information:
Speakers for the townhall on the carbon footprint of EGU's General Assembly:

1. Martin Rasmussen (Managing Director Copernicus.org):
Measures taken by the EGU General Assembly organisers

2. Susanne Baumann-Söllner (CEO of the Austria Centre Vienna):
Measures taken by the Austria Centre Vienna

3. Denise Cosulich (Director Annual Meetings & Industry Relations) and Maria Doppler (Green Event Coordinator):
Experiences and tips from the European Society of Radiology congress as green-certified meeting

4. Olaf Eisen (President of the Division on Cryospheric Science):
A discussion of train travel to the General Assembly

Followed by an open discussion and a call for tips on new measures to investigate.

This Town Hall Meeting aims to give a future outlook of what new directions in scientific research could be possible if online data sets, tools, and research infrastructures really are fully integrated on a global scale across scientific discipline, sectoral and national boundaries.

We look up to the sky: what spectacular scientific results can we foresee? What would be needed to achieve that. But also down to earth: what are current barriers or challenges? how can we overcome those? What does this require from all of us and our current way of thinking about integrating data and science? How can we boldly go where no scientist has gone before?

This Town Hall Meeting follows up on the session ESSI 2.6 where various approaches demonstrate successful integration on the level of datasets and/or research infrastructures in support of scientific research within single disciplines, national/continental boundaries or the same sector.

The Town Hall has the objective to go one step further on the path to full integration of all these initiatives not just across the Earth and environmental sciences but also include the social sciences and humanities to help make transdisciplinary science a reality. Although this may seem a small step in this day and age of great online, technological possibilities, early attempts hint that it will still be a giant leap to fully achieve this integration.

Public information:
Agenda:
Short statements by all panellists on:
What could be achieved scientifically if data and science is truly integrated across the globe.
What could be Nobel Prize worthy science in Global GeoSciences in the future?
What are the most important challenges and opportunities to achieve this integration of data and research infrastructure?
Which barriers need to be overcome, what do you ask from all of us?
Is this the thing we need? Or how to approach this idea of integration?
Responses by the panellists on the statements, followed by a discussion with the audience

Moderator: Ari Asmi (University of Helsinki, ICOS-ERIC)
Panelists to be announced

Since 2007, the European Research Council (ERC), has had the mission to encourage excellent researchers in Europe through competitive funding, by supporting top researchers across all fields and of any nationality.

In more ten years, the ERC has funded over 9,000 researchers. It has created career opportunities for some 50,000 research staff, resulting in numerous scientific breakthroughs and leading to over 100,000 international scientific journal articles.

This Town Hall will be an opportunity to get a flavour of the ERC projects funded in the various disciplines of geosciences, through short presentations by grantees providing an overview of the major achievements. All researchers interested in innovative research are encouraged to attend.

Public information:
Speakers:
'A new era for observing glaciers from space' - Andreas Kääb, University of Oslo
'History of sedimentary quartz grains: from atoms and radiation towards reconstructing past climate change' - Alida Timar-Gabor, Babeș-Bolyai University
'Earthquakes... in the laboratory' - Alexandre Schubnel, Ecole Normale Superieure
'Methane related iron reduction in sediments' - Orit Sivan, Ben Gurion University of the Negev

The paradigm of Open Science is based on the tiers Open Access, Open Data and Free Open Source Software (FOSS). However, the interconnections between the tiers remain to be improved. This is a critical factor to enable Open Science. This Townhall meeting reaches out all across EGU, espescially welcoming Early Career Scientists, to network and discuss the current challenges and opportunities, including:

OpenPlanetary (OP) was born as a community-driven initiative to address the need of the planetary science community for sharing ideas and collaborating on common planetary research topics mostly related to data analysis problems. OpenPlanetary started back in 2015 from an initial participants effort to stay connected and share information related to and beyond the ESA’s first Planetary GIS Workshop. It then continued during the 2nd USGS Planetary Data Workshop. Since 2018 OP became a non-profit organization.

With 300+ members across many countries, the OpenPlanetary community is made-up of and intended for research and education professionals: scientists, engineers, designers, teachers, and students, as well as space enthusiasts and citizen scientists.

Our common goal is to promote and facilitate the open practice of planetary science and data analysis for professionals and amateurs. We do so by organizing events and conducting collaborative projects aimed at creating scientific, technical and educational resources, tools and data accessible to all. For two years OP has organized the OP-DataCafe within the European Planetary Science Congress, where researchers gather to discuss data and software related topics.

The OP flagship project is OpenPlanetaryMap (OPM), a mapping and social platform to foster planetary mapping and cartography on the web for all.

Since a big part of planetary data comes from the processing of remote sensing instruments, the use of geospatial technologies commonly used for Earth-based application is being spread among the Planetary Science community in the last decade.

This OSGeo/OPM townhall meeting represents the first contact between the newborn OP and the more than 10 years old OSGeo foundation. We will discuss and delineate possible common ground where to develop ideas and coordinates projects.

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation, or OSGeo, is a not-for-profit umbrella organization for Free and Open Source geospatial tools, including QGIS, gvSIG, GRASS GIS, Geoserver and many others. OSGeo is hosting this Townhall event to support the collaborative development of open source geospatial software by promoting sustainable Open Science within EGU.

Research software development is an essential, integral part of research activity and has a significant influence on the quality of research results. Research software supports science by aiding acquisition, analysis, simulation and visualization of data and complex processes, enabling collaboration between researchers, and improving science communication. The British Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) has coined the slogan "Better Software - Better Research", and we are sure it applies to geosciences as much as any other scientific discipline.

However, the current approaches to research software as well as the recognition of research software engineering (RSEng) do not adequately reflect the importance of this work. The Research Software Engineers (RSE) in the Geosciences townhall meeting brings together contributors to reseearch software who might or might not already self-identify as Research Software Engineers (RSE). We get to know each other and share experiences from career development, job searches, employers/institutions/organisations, or practical challenges with computers, data & software.

The agenda includes short reports on previous activities for RSEs at EGU and introductions of local chapters (e.g. UK, Germany, The Netherlands, ...). If you are interested to contribute to RSEng actions in the context of EGU or share your experiences, please fill out the survey at https://bit.ly/rse-survey-egu

Within the World Climate Research Programme the Water for the Food Baskets of the World Grand Challenge aims to bring together expertise from various disciplines to tackle the evolution of water availability in regions of high intense agriculture under climate change.
The aim of this meeting is to foster community engagement and to develop strategies for future projects and collaborations.

This meeting will be focused on giving an update to the community on the current status of Mars Sample Return (MSR) science planning, particularly through the work of the MSR Science Planning Group (MSPG). MSPG has been established by NASA and ESA to help develop a stable foundation for international scientific cooperation for the purposes of returning and analyzing samples from Mars. MSPG’s approach is to formulate and propose mechanisms through which the international scientific community can achieve our shared scientific objectives.


The agenda for this meeting will include:
1) a reprisal of MSPG’s activities and the pathways available for the community to participate; 2) a review of the recent workshop "Science in Containment" and the resulting report; 3) Expectations for future science-related MSR workshops; 4) time for community feedback and input.

The new EurofleetsPlus project will facilitate access to an integrated and advanced research vessel fleet, designed to meet the evolving and challenging needs of the user community. European and international researchers from academia and industry will be able to apply for several access programmes fully funded by the project. EurofleetsPlus will prioritise support for research on sustainable, clean and healthy oceans, linking with existing ocean observation infrastructures, and it will support innovation through working closely with industry. The project will enable access to a unique fleet of 27 state-of-the-art research vessels from European and international partners. Through competitive calls, researchers will be able to access the entire North Atlantic, Mediterranean, Black Sea, North Sea, Baltic Sea, Pacific Southern Ocean and Ross Sea. In addition to ship time, researchers will also have access to new AUVs and ROVs. In addition to comprehensive transnational access activitie s, the project will undertake joint research in challenging and highly relevant areas, including deep ocean research and exploration, data management, and enabling future virtual access.

The ACROSS (Atmospheric ChemistRy Of the Suburban foreSt) is a framework for investigation of the atmospheric chemistry of mixed urban/biogenic air masses. The research is conducted primarily through a comprehensive, multi-platform field campaign near Paris, in which observations will be made to address key scientific questions, but also includes related laboratory and modeling activities. The purpose of this townhall meeting is to present information about ACROSS and to answer questions from scientists who are interested in being involved in the project.

New generations of satellites, models and other scientific developments are opening vast opportunities for monitoring and understanding biodiversity and the effects of conservation efforts. Biodiversity strategies, targets and indicators for the future are currently in development in the context of the United Nations, the European Union and other institutions. This event will address how Earth Observation should be further incorporated in these policies building on findings of the ECOPOTENTIAL project. The project applies Earth Observation for practical conservation in over 25 protected areas in Europe and beyond.

Organizer(s): UN Environment and ECOPOTENTIAL

The DFG-funded Coordinated Research Centre (CRC) ‘Earth – Evolution at the dry limit’ approaches the end of the first - of potentially three - four-year funding period (http://sfb1211.uni-koeln.de/). The CRC’s investigators are currently consolidating their project ideas for the envisaged second phase (7/2020-6/2024). Aim of the town hall meeting is to discuss concepts and project ideas with scientist that are currently outside the CRC. The CRC's sub-projects are open to collaboration with external investigators (DFG-rules apply).
The objective of the CRC is to pioneer the research on the mutual evolutionary relationships between Earth surface processes and biota. The target areas are arid to hyper-arid systems, where both biota and Earth surface process are severely and predominantly limited by the availability of water. In doing this we aim to isolate the key fingerprints of biological activity at the (water) limit of the habitable Earth, and to characterize the Earth surface processes operating in the (virtual) absence of liquid water (fog is present in many areas, runoff-creating precipitation is absent in many areas). We aim to characterize thresholds for biological colonization and concurrent fluvial transformation of landscapes, the tipping point(s) of biotically and abiotically controlled Earth surface systems, and establish detailed long-term terrestrial climatic records of the oldest and most arid zones on Earth. Chronometric and spatial information on the colonization and radiation of biota will be related to the landscape evolution and their common driver; climate.
In achieving these goals, we foresee major contributions to emerging concepts of evolutionary lag time, the interplay between geographical barriers and species migration in response to climate change, species diversification in response to climate and geological processes, biogeomorphology and the development and refinement of methodologies to date and determine rates of Earth surface processes and biological evolution.

Various weather modification and geoengineering options are under discussion for mitigating climate change and for addressing water security issues, e.g., the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science. These options are controversially discussed in the public. However, their linkages have not been dicussed in detail yet. At this meeting, we would like to discuss the various challenges and opportunities arising from this interdisciplinary collaboration. Contributions are welcome, which investigate the various geoengineering and weather modification options from the local to the regional scale.

Geosciences are more than ever solicited in their full interdisciplinarity to meet the urgent need to make our cities climate neutral and proof, smart, safe, resilient, sustainable, inclusive, enjoyable, and to increase well-being and health.

This is testified by a series of important international agreements, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Program for 2030, COP21 and the EU Amsterdam Pact. The emergence of large city networks (RC100, ICLEI, C40) also underscores the urgency of achieving these agreements goals. The challenge is to drastically change the interactions between cities and their geophysical environment: to shift from short-term resource and risk management to a wise environmental monitoring over a wide range of space-time scales and to develop integrative responses to both geophysical changes and the ongoing urbanisation.

Is the community of geosciences involved enough? How to move forward?

Most paleo-environmental records today are provided by correlative and multi-parameter measurements on sediment cores. Therefore, it is of primordial importance to understand processes governing the formation of sediments, possible geometric deformations through seismic or gravitational events and geochemical/mineralogical transformations.

Detailed studies of such processes on actual/recent sediments will dramatically improve the quality of the information retrieved through core analyses.

This meeting aims at gathering experts working on various aspects of sediment core analyses to come up with a long-term (in order to reveal the changes in the vertical and if possible in their horizontal spreadings by the correlative periodic analysis of future additions with today's sediments) research program to monitor ‘recording’
processes in marine and lacustrine environments. These efforts need to be carried at a variety of geographic locations, through 5 to 10 years repeated sampling with same instrumental standards and procedures, taking into account such details as magnetic orientation, geometric angularities, etc. We are hoping to promote such a collaborative and institutional commitment that the nature of such effort requires by the help of scientific collaboration from this townhall meeting. A few scientific institutions in the EU would be enough to accomplish that project subject, but we need to get integration of experiences from other institutions for catching unobserved events through interpretations. Answers of these questions will be explained with meeting attendants: why are we late and waited for such a scientific work? Who will take responsibilities from meeting attendants? Is the work load of samples heavier than regional projects? What is the ways of understanding to later placed events in sediments as flat elongated limbs of folds which is not given proofs in core sample?

Public information:
Meeting will start with scope around subjects "from field sampling until to preparation and measurement stages" will continue with applications at every stages with their different results which being not comparable for same sample. In duration we will discuss . At the end our considerations and decisions at sedimantology how will help for provide new realistic visions? The subject 'Global reference sediment analysis at every five year or end of decade timing' can be latest one of highly realistic mentalities in science will discussed for understand sedimentary processes like possible proxy element migration in time before disturber effect of seismic events. All branches are invited

Addressing the unique set of global challenges that society is facing in the onset of the 21st century requires more than ever that Earth scientists advance their understanding of our planet, its processes and its interactions with human activities and translate that knowledge into solutions for society, policy advice and new digital services for the benefit of citizens. In the next decade Europe will rely on the most comprehensive and sophisticated space-based observation infrastructure in the world (involving the Copernicus Sentinels, the ESA’s Earth Explorers and the meteorological, national and commercial missions) providing an extraordinary potential to observe the different components of the Earth system and its dynamics with unprecedented levels of detail and accuracy from space. However, ensuring that the scientific community takes full advantage from this unprecedented capacity and maximise its impact will require a significant collaborative effort and an integrated approach to science where the synergistic use of EO satellite data, in-situ and citizen observations and advanced modelling capabilities together with interdisciplinary research and new technologies will be essential elements. The alignment of scientific actions funded under both EC and ESA programmes represents an unique opportunity to ensure that the complementary roles, expertise and funding of both institutions may serve a common purpose: provide a coordinated response to the grand science challenges of the next decade. This Town-Hall meeting aims at presenting and discussing with the scientific community the preliminary concepts, status and plans for the preparation of a new joint EC-ESA initiative to jointly advance Earth system science as a tool to respond to the global societal challenges.

Public information:
Addressing the unique set of global challenges that society is facing in the onset of the 21st century requires more than ever that Earth scientists advance their understanding of our planet, its processes and its interactions with human activities and translate that knowledge into solutions for society, policy advice and new digital services for the benefit of citizens. In the next decade Europe will rely on the most comprehensive and sophisticated space-based observation infrastructure in the world (involving the Copernicus Sentinels, the ESA’s Earth Explorers and the meteorological, national and commercial missions) providing an extraordinary potential to observe the different components of the Earth system and its dynamics with unprecedented levels of detail and accuracy from space. However, ensuring that the scientific community takes full advantage from this unprecedented capacity and maximise its impact will require a significant collaborative effort and an integrated approach to science where the synergistic use of EO satellite data, in-situ and citizen observations and advanced modelling capabilities together with interdisciplinary research and new technologies will be essential elements. The alignment of scientific actions funded under both EC and ESA programmes represents an unique opportunity to ensure that the complementary roles, expertise and funding of both institutions may serve a common purpose: provide a coordinated response to the grand science challenges of the next decade. This Town-Hall meeting aims at presenting and discussing with the scientific community the preliminary concepts, status and plans for the preparation of a new joint EC-ESA initiative to jointly advance Earth system science as a tool to respond to the global societal challenges.