Measurements and observations are essential to the development and advancement of understanding in the geosciences. Measurements are also critical to the detection and quantification of long term change and short term hazards, at a time when non-stationarity in Earth systems is increasing and extreme events are occurring daily. For many regions and domains however, observational networks are lacking, while the need for information is increasing due to growing human populations, intensifying geopolitical pressures and Earth’s rapidly changing climate.
Happily, at a time where the need for observational information is greatest, so too are the opportunities. New observational tools ranging from advanced spaceborne sensors delivering global high resolution data, to a proliferation of ultra-low-cost sensors all present new opportunities. High performance computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning and data assimilation can streamline workflows and deliver new insights from novel and established sources. The re-analysis of historical records, often through shared effort, can improve understanding of past events and conditions. The opportunistic repurposing of existing sensor technologies is leading to exciting and cost-effective new opportunities for monitoring and observations.
To ensure the long term success of the geosciences, and the health of our planet, it is imperative that advances in measurement science continue and that knowledge and information is shared effectively within our community, and beyond.
The hosts and invited speakers from a range of science and technology disciplines in this Union-wide session will showcase the most exciting advances in measurement, monitoring and observational tools and data systems, and look to the future to see what new possibilities exist. We will explore how innovations from outside of the geoscience domain can bring benefit to our work and how our community can drive the development of new tools and techniques.
The speakers will explore pathways and obstacles to innovation, and help the audience identify opportunities to advance observational methods across the geosciences.
The session will energise the community to realise the unprecedented opportunities that now exist, and will be of interest and relevance to everyone obtaining or using measurements and observations across all scientific divisions.

And remember, making measurements is always more fun…!

Climate science now unequivocally states that human activities have caused the global warming that is observed to date. This state of knowledge builds on centuries of scientific advances in the understanding of the climate system, from multiple lines of evidence - observations, theory, process understanding, and numerical modelling. This presentation will build on key findings from the Sixth Assessment Cycle of the Intergovernemental Panel on Climate Change, and place the current scientific understanding in this context of climate science history, and lay out what is the current state of climate, with the observed intensification of global and regional changes, and what are physically plausible futures, unpacking how science underpins the understanding of the climate emergency. We will encompass the scientific understanding of human influence on the global carbon cycle and sources and sinks of greenhouse gases, of human influence on observed climates (attribution), and insights from past climate evidence (paleoclimatology). We will explain how advances in the understanding of the Earth system are crucial to inform climate action through the understanding of current and future changes in global and regional climatic impact-drivers, as a function of human influence and global warming levels, and through the understanding of the geophysical constraints for halting global warming, in particular the specific roles of cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide and short-lived climate forcers. Finally we will provide a physical climate science perspective on the current state of climate action, following the outcomes of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 28th Conference of Parties (COP28).

The Arctic is warming between 4-8 times faster than the global average, making permafrost soil organic carbon susceptible to degradation. The quantity and timeline of methane emissions from this carbon entering the atmosphere is uncertain. Yet, the permafrost environment is changing rapidly, permafrost thaw is leading to increasingly significant changes in landscape and biodiversity. To predict the impacts of permafrost thaw on the landscape and methane emissions, international collaboration is necessitated. To this end, ESA and NASA have established the Arctic Methane Permafrost Challenge, a transatlantic initiative bringing together circumpolar studies across scales.

The aim of this session is to further enhance the understanding of all aspects of change in the permafrost environment leading to methane emissions across all scales in the circumpolar Arctic. This symposium will invite leading figures in the field in order to understand the current state of research, and how to further understanding. The session will focus on science synergies across biodiversity and landscape studies, carbon cycling, and integrated observing technologies across international partners to build on and enhance existing Arctic science.

Incomplete evidence for the long-term evolution of Earth and difficulties of integrating existing data, in particular in digital form, limit the geoscientific understanding of Earth’s past and future. A wealth of data exists in archives and publications, which is not readily accessible to scientists. Compilation of such data in digital databases with existing digital data can mark a qualitative step forward to geosciences, in particular by combining it with efficient new data structures, data extraction methods and processing software.

This challenge is being explored by the new Deep-time Digital Earth (DDE) programme, launched by IUGS and around 30 other geoscience organisations, with the vision to foster a deep-time data driven research paradigm. DDE will harmonize deep-time earth data, share global geoscience knowledge, and advance geoscience understanding and research through development of an open-access on-line digital infrastructure.

This interdisciplinary Union-wide session includes contributions from various geoscience disciplines, particularly those where research progress is dependent on the availability and access to complex, global-scale datasets and models in deep time. The session presents contributions from application of Big Data analyses through Cloud Computing, and studies based on building, extending and using online platforms, together with discussion of secure and ethical data sharing in a digital infrastructure aiming at solving Deep-time issues.

In 2023, the European Commission published the Critical Raw Materials (CRM) Act. This regulation established benchmarks for the supply of CRMs within the European Union:

• At least 10% of the EU's annual consumption for extraction,
• At least 40% of the EU's annual consumption for processing,
• At least 15% of the EU's annual consumption for recycling,
• Not more than 65% of the Union's annual consumption of each strategic raw material at any relevant stage of processing from a single third country.

Achieving these targets will require (i) Creating secure and resilient EU critical raw materials supply chains; (ii) Ensuring that the EU can mitigate supply risks, (iii) Investing in research, innovation and skills and (iv) Protecting the environment by improving circularity and sustainability of critical raw materials, (v) strengthening international partnerships.

Under the Act, EU countries will be required to identify and quantify their mineral resources, including virgin materials and potential waste streams. European geoscientists across all areas of research and resource assessment will need to develop new, more efficient, tools, data and data products to support the Act. These will also need to be widely shared and implemented to deliver European-wide resource estimates. Critically, this work will require collaboration with economists, environmental scientists, policymakers and social and behavioural scientists.

This Union Symposium aims to identify the role of geoscientists in delivering the CRM Act for Europe. Discussion will focus on how we can build on previous research, infrastructure and data, and aims to identify new opportunities under collaborative programmes such as Horizon Europe.
Expert Panellists include:
o Mr Gabriel Nievoll, DG Grow, European Commission
o Dr Christoph Poinssot, Deputy CEO Geological Survey of France (BRGM) & EuroGeoSurveys
o Priv. Doz. Dr. Simona Regenspurg, GFZ Helmholtz Centre Potzdam
o Dr Karen Hanghoj, Director British Geological Survey

In 2022 the IPCC called out climate disinformation for the first time, noting a “deliberate undermining of science” was contributing to “misperceptions of the scientific consensus, uncertainty, disregarded risk and urgency, and dissent”.

The spread of false and misleading information can erode trust in public institutions, governments, and the scientific community. It fosters polarisation, disrupts informed decision-making, obstructs constructive dialogue, and subsequently poses a threat to social cohesion and democracy. As researchers, we stand in the eye of the storm. As professional “knowledge generators”, we produce and evaluate facts and should be well-equipped to debunk information we read elsewhere. At the same time, we may not be as well equipped as we think and our research may be taken out of context, with single facts inserted into a wider misleading narrative.

During this Union Symposium, an expert panel will outline what mis- and disinformation is, how it is created and spread in the digital age, why false experts gain traction and how they intentionally misrepresent scientific research, and how the dissemination of doubt and denial can undermine public trust, influence policy decisions, and impact society as a whole. The session will also discuss the role and responsibility of the scientific community in managing and preventing the spread of misinformation as well as the other tools that exist to deal with it.

Given the prevalence of mis and disinformation in today’s society, this session will be relevant for participants from all career stages and scientific disciplines.

Is the velocity of tectonic plate movement constant, or does it fluctuate through geological time? Does the rate of seafloor spreading vary at individual mid-ocean ridges? Is there a link between plate velocity, subduction flux and the magmatic flare-ups in convergent margins? Could the peaks in global spectra of U-Pb zircon ages record periods of accelerated mantle convection leading to faster subduction? How realistic are models of rifting or subduction that assume constant plate motion?

The panelists will debate the motion that plate motions are constant. To support their arguments they will draw on observational and physical arguments spanning the full range of solid-earth disciplines. We explicitly encourage audience participation.

Studies in recent years have provided evidence for the potential link between climate change and increased earthquake activity. For instance, seismicity has been shown to increase in former glaciated regions (Hampel et al., 2010; Stewart et al., 2000). An explanation for this is that glacier melting reduces the massive weight on the earth’s crust, causing it to bounce back through the process known as “isostatic rebound” (Masih, 2018). While this may be applicable in regions of extensive ice sheets like Greenland and Antarctica, the mechanism is less clear in areas of smaller ice caps.
Meanwhile, droughts that are expected to intensify in a warming climate have been identified as another potential trigger for increased seismicity. Alternating periods of drought and heavy rain have been shown to cause the “rise and fall” of mountain ranges (Argus et al., 2017), the resulting stress changes of which could potentially be felt on nearby faults, particularly where these faults are already in a critical state. Amos et al. (2014) also showed that excessive groundwater pumping, which is exacerbated during droughts, may cause stress regime change on nearby faults by “unweighting” the earth’s crust. In the Appenines, trends in the temporal correlation between geodetic displacement and seismicity indicate that the poroelastic deformation resulting from karst aquifer recharge is modulating the occurrence rate of seismicity (D’Agostino et al., 2018, Picozzi et al., 2022)
Moreover, a recent study (Steer et al., 2020) shows that typhoons, which are expected to intensify in the future, could temporarily change the seismicity of a region significantly. Super typhoons could cause extensive erosion and landslides, removing enormous loads that could then change the state of stress in the upper part of the Earth’s crust. Li et al. (2020) arrived at a similar conclusion, attributing several M>6 earthquakes in Central Taiwan to typhoon-induced erosion and landslides.
From the foregoing, are we now really uncovering how deeply sensitive our planet is, and how interconnected its systems are? Could changes in our atmospheric, hydrospheric and cryospheric systems as a result of climate change really bring about damaging geospheric processes such as earthquakes? Where are we in terms of understanding this connection? How will this affect the way we evaluate and mitigate seismic risks? These are among the questions we are hoping our proposed Great Debate session can shed light to.

For the first time in Earth’s history, one species has developed such power to shape the planet that a new geological age has been identified and named in its honour: that age is The Anthropocene, and the species is us. Our power and influence are now so great that our actions are the primary factors impacting the planet’s landscapes, climate, environment, ecology, and ultimately its future habitability for us, and all other living species.
Whilst humanity’s impact on global climate systems is widely recognised, recent years have produced numerous extreme weather events, including unprecedented heat on land and in the oceans, and record-breaking wildfires: a devastating reality that not long ago seemed a distant future. A worrying indication that, although overall planetary heating is roughly in line with predictions, increases in extreme weather events are occurring faster and with a greater severity than projected, possibly indicating that climatic tipping points have already been breached.

Perhaps lower in widespread public awareness, but equally critical, is that we are in the midst of what is being referred to as “Earth’s Sixth Great Extinction”. With the loss of species running at between 1,000 and 10,000 times natural rates, our actions threaten the intricate web of life that has made our planet so favourable for supporting a rich diversity of life, including ourselves.

Against the backdrop of these unprecedented events and their impacts, there are worrying signs of a green backlash, with individuals, political groups, and industry protesting the steps that are being taken to transition us toward a net zero and resilient future.

In this session, we will explore the critical role of communicating our scientific results to make sure society will effectively mitigate these threats. We will debate the vital role of scientists in addressing this societal greenlash, as well as the increase in greenwashing, and our role in shaping solutions to avoid a catastrophic mass extinction event. Furthermore, we will discuss the tools and pathways needed to ensure that we are able to take everyone with us on our way to a greener and more resilient future.

The "Early Warnings for All (EW4ALL)" initiative announced by the United Nations (UN) Secretary General in March 2022 is a ground-breaking effort to ensure that everyone on Earth is protected from hazardous weather, water or climate events through life-saving early warning systems by the end of 2027. Delivering on this call requires global collaboration: the initiative is co-led by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), and supported by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

EW4ALL is built around four key pillars:
1. Disaster risk knowledge and management
2. Detection, observation, monitoring, analysis, and forecasting
3. Warning dissemination and communication
4. Preparedness and response capabilities

Despite advancements related to weather, water and climate, there are still scientific and technological challenges that need to be addressed in order to improve the provision of accurate and effective early warnings for a variety of hazards. For instance, advancements are needed to improve impact-based, people-centered forecasting and warning systems, as well as to enhance our understanding of how climate will continue to change and vary in order to ensure that multi-hazard early warnings are effective not only in today’s conditions, but also in the future. Research is also needed to better understand how to best communicate warnings and uncertainty to ensure that warnings are understood and acted upon, or to understand how machine learning and artificial intelligence can help setting high-quality impact-focused and timely operational forecasts.

In this debate, we will discuss those challenges for scientists working in the field of natural hazards monitoring and forecasting, impacts and disaster prevention, and social sciences. We will discuss how to address them through scientific and technological innovations, enabling this action plan and providing early warnings for all.

As themes of climate change, environment, nature, and hazards dominate global headlines, the need for sound, timely, and digestible scientific advice in public policymaking is on the rise. Many Unions and Societies representing breadth of the geoscience community are working to put geoscience at the heart of emergent and evolving policy topics by operating some kind of science-policy function. By working to promote evidence-informed solutions to global societal challenges, these units aim to integrate science into global policy, and represent the geoscience community in global policy considerations, but are they delivering?

This debate will explore the challenges and successes geoscience unions and societies worldwide have experience by engaging in various ways with the science policy process. It will explore whether such representative organisations are fulfilling the expectations of the communities they represent, and ask how they could expand and evolve the science policy service that they provide.

Numerous geoscientists are producing and disseminating knowledge about climate change and contemporary environmental degradation to increasingly wider audiences, from civil society to policymakers. This knowledge is notably gathered in alarming reports by scientific institutions such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and it indicates that rapid and radical transformations of our societies are simply vital.

Still, ongoing efforts to trigger such transformations, whether by political, economic, or civil society stakeholders, often fall short of the urgent actions recommended. It has increasingly been suggested that putting most efforts into ever-improving knowledge and communication is a strategy that can only address part of the obvious gap between Science and the required societal change (see review articles by Stoddard et al., 2021 and Oreskes, 2022).

In light on this, and given the emergencies clearly informed by scientific consensus, we contend that the adequate question for a great debate is not whether scientists should engage more into facing the crisis, but how they should do it. Specifically, which forms of engagement are suitable for scientists if they acknowledge that a) science must be effective at the policy level and b) that informing is simply not enough? Should they enter the political arena (as citizens or as scientists)? With which type of collectives, communities, and with which strategy? Should they prioritize legitimacy or legality? Answering these questions requires assessing and discussing both the benefits (i.e., effects in terms of radical transformation of the society, for example with disinvestment from Universities and banks from the fossil fuel industry), and costs (i.e., potential backlash against scientist credibility or against the autonomy -financial or political- of scientific institutions) of scientific engagement in our era.

Bibliography:
Oreskes, N.: The trouble with the supply-side model of science, Proc.Indian Natl. Sci. Acad., 88, 824–828, https://doi.org/10.1007/s43538-022-00121-1, 2022.
Stoddard, I., et al.: Three Decades of Climate Mitigation: Why Haven’t We Bent the Global Emissions Curve?, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 46, 653–689, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-011104, 2021.

Climate change, biodiversity loss, and artificial intelligence are contemporary challenges that demand evidence-based policy decisions; it is therefore critical that researchers actively engage in providing insights and expertise to support decision-making. Engaging with the media and civil society can play an important role in building public trust and understanding of scientific research, and helping citizens understand policy measures and make informed decisions. However, there are several challenges researchers, especially early-career researchers (ECRs), face when interested in engaging with stakeholders and the policy-making process. These include institutional, social, cultural and personal barriers such as lack of mentoring and trust from senior researchers, lack of professional recognition/reward, lack of access to policy-makers, professional instability, or lack of confidence and training.
In this debate we will explore how to enable the sustainable engagement of ECRs with the policy landscape. What role can ECRs play in bridging the gap between scientific knowledge and policy implementation? How can early career researchers navigate the intricate mechanisms of stakeholder engagement? What significant challenges and barriers do they face and how can these be overcome?
In an open dialogue with the audience, our panellists will discuss strategies and mechanisms for collaboration between young researchers and policy-makers, and identify pathways to develop an effective dialogue that would help lead to evidence-informed actions and decisions. We will explore the role of funding agencies, scientific academies and organizations, senior researchers, early-career networks and the media. How can these different actors adapt to support ECRs in engaging with society? What collaborative efforts can be fostered to empower the next generation of scientific leaders?
The panel will be moderated by a science journalist and include members from funding agencies, scientific academies and organizations, senior researchers, and early-career networks. This session is a joint initiative of the EU-funded research projects OptimESM and ESM2025, which aim to develop the new generation of Earth system models and further our understanding on the evolution of the Earth system.

The academic landscape consistently emphasizes the importance of mobility. Researchers, particularly those in the early stage of their careers, undergo increasing pressures as international mobility becomes a key requirement for securing academic positions. Academic mobility fosters global collaboration, enriches research perspectives, and increases the productivity of the individual and the research group, thereby accelerating innovation, but it comes with a myriad of challenges; particularly for academics in relationships (whether with other academics or partners pursuing different career paths), third-country nationals, and individuals facing social inequalities in the access to opportunities and resources.

Focusing on Europe, the EU has introduced policies to encourage and increase cross-border mobility in the European Research Area context. However, the EU's free movement policy still has gaps which can present obstacles.

Do the opportunities provided by academic mobility outweigh the challenges associated with it? How can the EU and academic institutions address the paradox of promoting academic mobility while also catering to the diverse needs and challenges faced by the modern academic, especially in light of relationship and nationality constraints? What are the challenges faced by displaced scientists and what can the scientific community do to address these challenges? In this great debate, we ask these questions and consider the perspective of different nationals, policies around researcher mobility in the EU, present and proposed institutional frameworks for inequalities we see in academic mobility and gendered implications.

Technological developments have always had an impact on the evolution of scientific publishing, transitioning from ink and paper to its current electronic format. In this context, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made its way to the process of publishing research results.
The advent of Large Language Models (LLM) which are capable of generating various types of textual content, raised concerns within the scientific community with regards to presenting research output. This new technological revolution is developing at a fast pace, with possibly significant consequences for scientific publications.
On the one hand, the benefits of generative AI include the improvement of readability of scientific papers by more structured and efficient writing, and refining language. On the other hand, AI-generated text may be inaccurate, incomplete and may carry biases possibly harmful to scholarly literature. In this scenario, how will the surge in the use of AI impact the credibility of published papers? How can we ensure accountability, integrity and responsibility of authors, editors, and reviewers? How can scientific achievement be assessed in publications? What is the extent to which the use of AI tools may introduce biases and inequalities in published texts? What are possibilities for the efficient, reliable, and beneficial use of AI tools in the peer review process?
Join us in this great debate to discuss the ‘blessing and bane’ of AI usage in scientific publishing and how to make best use of its potential and fast developments within the scientific publishing community.
Panel members will include editors of (EGU) journals, authors, and other members of the scientific publishing community.

Intersectionality refers to a combination of identity and social factors which combine to create different modes of discrimination in the geoscience community. Factors include but are not limited to gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disability, age, and religion. Different combinations of factors can interact to enhance (or reduce) the possibility that persons may experience discriminating behaviours such as sexism, racism, ableism, and colonialism.
In the geoscience community, where global issues require international collaboration, these factors are more likely to interact and be displayed. At all career levels, from undergraduate and postgraduate students to mid- and late-career researchers, intersectionality is present. Non-inclusive working environments ultimately create an atmosphere of discriminatory behavior which leads to abandonment of academic careers.
Institutional level initiatives that are clearly functional are key to not only promote but assure and protect inclusivity. In turn, this builds a positive and productive working environment, promotes the mental well-being of all scientists, and gives everyone the opportunity to reach their greatest potential.
In this great debate, we will address a series of intersectional factors and how they may be compounded in adverse (and positive) ways. We will discuss ways and means to invest in intersectional issues and the cost and value of promoting inclusion of all diversities with equitable initiatives.

The ESSI Medal and Awards session celebrates this year's awardees for the Ian McHarg Medal and the ESSI Division Outstanding ECS Award. The Ian McHarg Medal Lecture will be given by François Robida, and the ESSI Division Outstanding ECS Award Lecture will be given by Anirudh Prabhu.

The Christiaan Huygens Medal was established by the Geosciences Instrumentation and Data Systems Division to recognise significant contributions in fields within the scope of the division. The medal is awarded for an innovation, development or discovery that has had major impact in its field, or for a series of contributions, during an extended period, that has led to significant progress in the tecnologies develop and advanced method system analysis Earth Science context. The Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Awards (formerly Division Outstanding Young Scientists Awards) recognise scientific achievement made by an Early Career Scientist in the field(s) covered by the GI division.

The European Green Deal zero emissions target, emphasised by the recent energy crisis, puts decarbonisation high up also on the priority lists of policymakers and industries. In this press conference, scientists will show how to best re-purpose coal mines, and decarbonise passenger transport without ignoring equity issues. They will also expose the benefits and risks of an approaching hydrogen economy, and the vulnerability of Swiss hydropower systems to climate variability.

Participants:
Rossella Urgnani
European Funding Development, Warrant Hub, Italy

Elisa Colas
RWTH Aachen, Germany

Yann Yasser Haddad
Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Dirk-Jan Van de Ven
Basque Center for Climate Change, Spain

Especially when it becomes scarce or unhealthy, food is an issue that is always critical. In this press conference, scientists share real-time impacts of climate variability and trade disruptions on food security; claim a better understanding of the use of reclaimed water for agricultural irrigation in Spain; and accelerate research to better understand tire-derived compound uptake in lettuce.

Participants:
Marijn Gülpen
Environmental Science Group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands

Paloma Esteve
Departamento de Economía Agraria, Estadística y Gestión de Empresas, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain

Thilo Hoffmann
Centre of Microbiology and Environmental System Science, University of Vienna, Austria

In this press conference, we present ground-breaking research findings that shed light on environmental change in Antarctica. In one study from the highly-studied Brunt Ice Shelf, researchers are combining ice cores, seismic surveys and modelling techniques to unravel the mysteries of iceberg calving, providing valuable insights into the processes driving this phenomenon. A second study, part of the UK-US-led International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration used seismic surveys to visualise the bedrock beneath Thwaites Glacier. The results of this study will feed into models which will give us new insights into the future of this unstable glacier. These studies represent significant strides in our understanding of the changes taking place in Antarctica, and their potential implications for global sea level rise.

Participants:
Olaf Eisen
Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Germany

Rob Larter, Emma Pearce, Liz Thomas, Oliver Marsh
British Antarctic Survey, United Kingdom

How much do we really know about one the largest planet in our Solar System? As new discoveries emerge from NASA’s Juno mission, observing the Jovian moon Io, another study examining asteroid fragments provides new data about the gas giant itself. An unique family of rare meteorite fragments has revealed the influence that Jupiter’s instability had on the evolution of our Solar System, particularly the asteroid belt between us, as late as 60-100 myr after its formation. Even as these fragments provide new understanding of Jupiter, NASA’s Juno Mission delivers brand new thermal data that indicates the presence of endogenic heat flow on Io, providing new information about the moon’s composition.

Participants
Chrysa Avdellidou
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, United Kingdom

Scott Bolton
Southwest Research Institute, United States of America

Traces of past human settlements and dispersal patterns are only rare if one does not know where to find them. In this press conference, scientists reveal a wide variety of newly uncovered traces, ranging from huge erratic boulders in the young glacial area of Poland, limescale in ancient Roman aqueducts, to the evidence carried by tiny pollen grains and even tinier cosmogenic nuclides. With this data, we gain new insight into geoscience influenced myths of frost giants, the pathways of Greek nomads and human dispersal patterns across Eurasia, and how water resource management and adaptations to climate crises were a problem for ancient settlements too.

Participants:

Adam Izdebski
Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Germany

Gül Sürmelihindi
University of Mainz, Germany

John D. Jansen
GFÚ Institute of Geophysics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Czechia

Robert Piotrowski
Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland

In this press conference, scientists explain how Artificial Intelligence (AI) helps to keep track of tropical-like cyclones across the Mediterranean Sea, so-called ‘Medicanes’, and how having a truly in-depth look at damage datasets can actually prevent financial losses when windstorms hit Europe. Researchers will also outline how climate models are underestimating summer warming in Western Europe, and that recently observed extreme heatwaves will likely be dwarfed by future events.

Participants:
Javier Martinez-Amaya
Image Processing Laboratory, University of Valencia, Spain

Dominik L. Schumacher
Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Julia Moemken
Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

Philipp Aglas-Leitner
Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Australia

Our planet protects us from cosmic rays, solar flares, micrometeorites and huge temperature variations. But what if the planetary shield is not strong enough, or what if we venture out into space itself?! In this press conference, scientists discuss the observation of biosignatures on distant exoplanets and where is the best Lunar real estate. For those who decide to remain on spaceship Earth, scientists outline how they predict sunspots and other extreme space weather with the help of advanced Machine Learning technology and.... a regular clock.

Participants:
Werner Grandl
Space Renaissance International, Italy

Stephanie Olson
Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University, United States of America

Andong Hu
CU Boulder, United States of America

Sandra Chapman
Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, Physics Department, University of Warwick, United Kingdom and Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Tromso, Norway