Are you unsure about how to bring order in the extensive program of the General Assembly? Are you wondering how to tackle this week of science? Are you curious about what EGU and the General Assembly have to offer? Then this is the short course for you!

During this course, we will provide you with tips and tricks on how to handle this large conference and how to make the most out of your week at this year's General Assembly. We'll explain the EGU structure, the difference between EGU and the General Assembly, we will dive into the program groups and we will introduce some key persons that help the Union function.

This is a useful short course for first-time attendees, those who have previously only joined us online, and those who haven’t been to Vienna for a while!

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is the largest Geosciences Union in Europe, largely run by volunteers. Conferences, journals, policy making and scientific communication are all important parts of EGU.

Whatever your closest link with EGU, would you like to get more involved?

Perhaps you are interested in running events, being a representative or being part of a committee. In this short course, we will provide an overview of all the activities of EGU, which are much more than just the General Assembly. We will give practical tips on how to get involved, who to contact and where to find specific information if you want to organise events, become an editor or nominate yourself for Division President. From blog writing to organising networking events, there’s something for everyone.

LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, plus; or LGBT for short) geoscientists likely have to face more obstacles throughout their career than their cisgender/heterosexual colleagues. These barriers can take many forms, e.g., inflexible bureaucratic limits on name/gender marker, changes on documentation, a lack of training for cruise/field leaders on LGBT topics, a lack of support for transgender and gender non-conforming people on field trips and research cruises, and safety and medical considerations LGBT people must account for when travelling for either field work/cruises or when moving countries for a new position. These obstacles can be made smaller and overcome; with awareness and understanding by colleagues and initiatives, LGBT academics can thrive and contribute to research.

In this short course, our invited speakers will discuss some of these topics and share their stories about the barriers they are dealing with or have overcome. We will also discuss policy developments over the recent years at institutions in different European and non-European countries, and on EGU General Assembly level, with a focus on future challenges and improvements to come.

How can scientists and governments ensure that their communication resonates more deeply with citizens without resorting to the manipulative tactics used by those who seek to undermine liberal democracy? How can scientific and government actors ensure their communications are equally meaningful and ethical?

This Short Course will combine insights from state-of-the-art scientific knowledge, novel empirical research on values-targeted communication strategies, and a deep understanding of practitioners’ and citizens’ attitudes on these topics. Examples from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre will be used to share practical guidance for scientists who need to successfully navigate the policy world.

Global challenges, such as climate change and natural hazards, are becoming increasingly complex and interdependent, and solutions have to be global in scope and based on a firm scientific understanding of the challenges we face. At the same time, Science and technology are playing an increasingly important role in a complex geopolitical landscape. In this difficult setting, scientific collaboration can not only be used to help address global challenges but also to foster international relations and build bridges across geopolitical divisions. Science diplomacy is a broad term used both to describe the various roles that science and researchers play in bridging geopolitical gaps and finding solutions to international issues, and also the study of how science intertwines with diplomacy in pursuing these goals


During this Short Course, experts will introduce key science diplomacy concepts and outline the skills that are required to effectively engage in science diplomacy. They will also provide practical insights on how researchers can actively participate in science diplomacy, explore real-life examples of science diplomacy, and highlight resources where participants can learn more about science diplomacy moving forward.

This Short Course is of interest to researchers from all disciplines and career levels.

Science for policy is the practice of integrating scientific knowledge into policymaking to ensure that scientific evidence is available for policymakers when making decisions. There are some basic considerations for engaging in science for policy that can help get you started, from considering how you frame your message, looking for windows of opportunity, and more.

This session will start by diving into some of the basics of policy, enabling participants to understand what science for policy is and how they can start engaging with it. The tips for engaging are relevant to all career stages and will also help you understand the different paths available depending on the level of engagement you are interested in.
The session will then introduce experts working on the science for policy interface to highlight specific skills that researchers can develop to increase their policy impact and provide some practical examples.

Values, principles and behaviours (VPBs) underlie geoethics and geoscience. Can we understand or build geoethics or conduct geoscience without reference to these VPBs? How do VPBs influence our professional practice in geoethics and in the geosciences? How are geoethical values, geoethical principles, geoethical behaviours and geoscience related?

Those are some of the questions that we wish to raise in our short course. Values include honesty, compassion, quality, objectivity, truth, respect, justice, peace and beauty. Principles generally make values explicit and are often embodied in ‘dictates’, such as thou shalt not kill, treat all people fairly, be supportive towards others, be humble in success and steadfast in adversity, take responsibility, etc. Behaviour is driven by both values and principles; it is a pattern of action (climate as opposed to weather, if you will). Examples might include striving for quality, being harsh on subordinates, being economical with the truth, being sensitive to others, using logic.

Often an ethical dilemma stems from two or more underlying value conflicts, such as individual identity and social value. It is not easy to understand the dynamics of such relations. Values clarification exercises are often used to enable people together to work through complex issues in which differing, contradictory or hidden values may influence beliefs, principles and behaviours, including decisions. Such exercises allow us to become more aware of the ways in which values relate to our geoethical and geoscience activities.

This Short Course will be conducted in a workshop format:
a. starting with short overviews of geoethics and of clarification exercises;
b. followed by a hands-on, small-group session; and
c. ending with a debriefing session and a discussion.

Both experts and novices in geoethical VPBs are welcome in this Short Course; teachers, researchers and students will benefit. If you wish to do a little preparation before the course, these may be useful:
https://www.lyellcollection.org/doi/10.1144/SP508-2020-191, or
https://presentations.copernicus.org/EGU21/EGU21-604_presentation.pdf

Please bring some blank paper and a pen. Also, bring your critical thinking skills and your powers of logic.

Scientists have now been sounding the alarm about the climate and ecological crisis for decades. Each new report further outlines the necessity to radically change course, to rapidly reduce CO2 emissions and more generally human impacts on the environment if we are to avoid disastrous consequences on societies and ecosystems. Yet, these warnings have invariably been met with insufficient responses, political inertia, or worse active denial or institutionalised efforts to delay action. Meanwhile, a strong climate movement has emerged, led primarily by young activists demanding immediate climate action to ensure a liveable planet and a just future for all. A growing number of scientists and academics have also been starting to contemplate which roles they could most effectively take on in these movements, either from joining or providing external.

The growing interest and associated curiosity towards these movements from the scientific community was confirmed by the large attendance to EGU24’s events about academic activism. At the same time, many academics are unsure about where to start, how and where to find like-minded colleagues and grass-root organisations, or how to set up campaigns and actions to push for change at their institutions and beyond. This short course aims at bridging this gap by providing first-hand experience and practical tools to academics eager to organise within or outside their institution, and/or mobilise fellow colleagues to join climate actions. Equally important, the course will touch on relevant aspects of mental health: From the perspective of climate anxiety, to difficult-to-navigate dynamics within the movement, to a more general activist fatigue.

The course will be divided into 3 parts:
1. A starters part, with a short introduction on possible roles for academics in the climate movement, followed by presentations from experienced organisers about setting up a campaign at your own university, mobilising colleagues and organising events
2. A group work part, where participants will choose one proposed case as an example for the organisation of a campaign or event, and discuss it as a group, based on the input part and their own knowledge
3. A debriefing part, where some of the groups will present their work to the rest of the participants. Potential critical aspects related to organisational roadblocks, internal group dynamics, or repercussions that might come with certain forms of activism will be discussed

In this short course we will address the increasing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in geoscientific research, guiding participants through the various stages of the research process where AI tools can be effectively implemented, however with responsibility. We will explore freely available AI tools that can be used for data analysis, model development, and research publication. Additionally, the course aims to provoke reflections on the ethical implications of AI use, addressing concerns such as data bias, transparency, and the potential for misuse. Participants will engage in interactive discussions to explore what constitutes responsible and acceptable use of AI in geoscientific research, aiming to establish a set of best practices for integrating AI into scientific workflows.

The foundation of a positive work climate is professionalism. Professionalism refers to the attitudes and behaviors that affect interpersonal relations of all types in the workplace. These relations include concepts of power, trust, respect, responsibility, justice, and fairness. Social structures that have hierarchical and asymmetric power relations have the potential for colleagues in positions of power to use this power to enable and enrich or abuse and diminish individuals. This can endanger professional and personal well-being, contribute to hostile work climates, and reduce productivity, research, and education outcomes. Ultimately, issues related to hostile work climates can affect program success. This workshop will provide resources to develop a workplace code of conduct that is proactive, preventative and promotes cultural change in office, laboratory, and field settings.

Building a successful academic career is challenging. Doing so while also raising a family can push you to your limits. Many early- and mid-career scientists grapple with balancing family life and academic responsibilities. The fear-of-missing-out dualism between family and academia causes an inner conflict and feeling of injustice and inadequateness. Families often find themselves confronted with what feels like a personal problem when, in reality, it is a shared societal issue. Modern families come in diverse forms, including dual-career parents, single parents, same-sex parents, and various shared parenting arrangements. The academic world must recognize and adapt to this reality, aligning with broader themes of inclusion, participation, and diversity.

It is crucial to find support and confidence in moving forward as an individual while remaining aligned with your personal values and goals. As a community, we need to openly discuss parenting in academia so that we can demand and develop sustainable solutions that benefit everyone, rather than repeatedly fighting private battles to follow the academic career dream. Parenthood can also shift your priorities, which may lead you to consider leaving academia altogether.

This short course provides a platform that allows an honest exchange on diverse experiences and continue the discussion from previous EGU General Assemblies on this topic. It will:
1. Provide insight into how being a parent impacts everyday academic life.
2. Present scientific studies on parenting in academia and explore the varying cultural and societal experiences.
3. Highlight personal experiences made by a panel of current and previous academic parents.
4. Conclude with an open discussion addressing public discourse on equal parenting and work-life balance.
This course is intended for scientists considering starting a family, current academic parents seeking to connect, and faculty staff responsible for supporting parenting employees.

Taking time off (e.g. while being on vacation) in academia poses several challenges, often due to the pressures of maintaining productivity in a highly competitive environment. Academic work is typically characterized by flexible but demanding schedules, making it difficult to fully disconnect during time off. Researchers often face the expectation of continuous output, leading to guilt or anxiety when taking breaks. Additionally, academic timelines are shaped by grant deadlines, publication schedules, and teaching commitments, limiting the optimal timing for vacations. These factors can result in burnout and reduced well-being, highlighting the need for a healthier life-work balance in academia.
In this short course, geoscientists from different career stages will talk about their experiences in taking time off. We will also focus on how the academic system can improve to allow scientists to take time off, considering that the academic world involves collaborating with scientists from different cultures, each with varying vacation times and public holidays. There will be room for questions and an open part for exchange and discussion.

Persistent issues of bullying, harassment, and other exclusionary behaviours remain prevalent in research and academic settings, disproportionately impacting underrepresented groups. Bystander intervention offers a proactive approach that enables individuals to safely counteract these instances of exclusionary behaviours and support those who are targeted. This Short Course is facilitated by ADVANCEGeo and is designed to equip participants with the skills to be effective active bystanders. Workshop participants will be trained to: (i) discern various types of hostile behaviours such as bullying, microaggressions, and sexual harassment, (ii) identify the institutional structures and practices in research and academia that support their prevalence, and (iii) respond in a manner that's both safe and constructive.

As your scientific career evolves, you may find yourself stepping into the pivotal role of an advisor or supervisor. Whether you’re a mid-career scientist or an early-career researcher preparing for this responsibility, guiding the next generation of scientists can be both rewarding and challenging. You might be searching for guidance or a role model yourself, but finding it hard to locate one. Don’t worry—we’ve got you covered!
This short course is designed to help you become not just an effective supervisor, but also a mindful and healthy one. We will explore strategies for creating supportive, balanced, and inclusive supervisory relationships that enhance the well-being of both you and your researchers or students. Topics will include encouraging professional growth, maintaining work-life balance, and integrating mindfulness practices to navigate the demands of supervision.
You’ll hear from experienced supervisors on practical tools for supervising with empathy. To provide a well-rounded perspective, early-career scientists will also share their insights on the type of supervision they value and need, offering a unique opportunity to understand the expectations and challenges from the researcher’s point of view.

Anyone entering the job market or looking for a new job after academia will confront the phrase ‘transferable skills’. PhD candidates and scientists are advised to highlight their transferable skills when applying for non-academic jobs, but it can be hard to know what these skills are. Similarly, for those looking to change scientific research areas or take a leap into a new field for their PhD, it is important to highlight your transferable skills. Big data analysis, communicating your findings, supervising, teaching, project management and budgeting are skills you might have from your research/science career. But there are many more. In this interactive workshop, we will start your journey of identifying your transferable skills and highlighting careers where these will be necessary!

The job market in both industry and academia can be a very challenging environment, especially for those either just completing a course of study, or looking to change sectors. Trying to get your application to stand out is a task that comes with a lot of unknowns, even after years of experience in higher or further education. Preparing for a higher level job application or interview is a useful skill that develops as you advance in your career – with new aspects being added with each new position you aim for. Once you get invited to interview, this process in itself bring a whole new set of challenges that range from: online vs in-person interviews; interview protocol; accommodations and reasonable requests; expected time-frames; anticipating questions; gauging employer culture and more.

This short course aims to bridge this gap to employment by drawing on the experience of senior career workers in both industry and academia, as well as HR professionals, to provide specific advice for anyone who is in the process of submitting a job application or preparing for interview. This short course will address questions such as: what to include or not in a cover letter and job application; what are the different kinds of CV and when you should use them; how to prepare for an online or in-person interview; what are some of the signs you can look for to identify workplace culture; and what questions you should ask in an interview.

As a practical exercise, this short course will conclude with a mock interview; a list of questions that could be asked of applicants in a limited time environment, with feedback available from the presenters. Short course participants will leave feeling more prepared and confident in their skills for navigating the job market.

Going through a career transition (such as moving into or out of a formal research environment) can be a challenge that many people feel underprepared for. Being able to consider the value of a position in its entirety, beyond salary, is an important skill that can be difficult to master until you have had some practical experience. Many elements beyond salary may fall into the category of employment conditions, including: flexible working hours and conditions; contracted hours; location; workplace culture and values; paid leave allowance; healthcare benefits; pension and bonuses; and much more – though only some of these will be negotiable. This short course aims to mitigate the gap in experience through a transparent discussion of not only what you can consider as valuable in a job role, but also when and how you can negotiate these aspects. By drawing on the experience of senior career workers, as well as HR professionals, this short course will address questions such as: what elements you should consider as negotiables in your current or prospective position; what are the processes for negotiating your employment conditions; when is a good time to negotiate a pay rise; and how to negotiate employment conditions once you have received a job offer.

As a practical exercise, this short course will guide participants through writing a proposal or justification for a salary increase or change of employment conditions, with the target that each participant will be knowledgeable and confident enough to put these skills to use when navigating the job market.

Early Career Researchers (ECRs) often play a crucial part in Research Projects. They are at the forefront of developing new methods, finding new insights, creating new solutions, and often are essential contributors in projects achieving their promised scientific output and deliverables. At the same time, research projects serve as an environment where ECRs can observe how projects are run, which might influence how these ECRs will then act as project leaders in the future. Yet, too few projects seem to address the fundamental importance of ECRs within a project and do not explicitly account for their needs or systematically offer opportunities that help them grow professionally.

This short course aims to provide an interactive platform for ECRs and project leaders to share, learn, and discuss best practices in engagement and empowerment within Research Projects. The course will offer a space for ECRs to reflect on their experiences, both positive or negative and to discuss means of structuring research projects that explicitly account for the needs and opportunities of ECRs, such as networking, discussion and dissemination of results, leadership, collaboration, scientific communication, creation of a community (especially in large and spread out consortiums).

The co-conveners of the session will first share some best practice examples of ECR empowerment in terms of 1) systematic involvement in project management, 2) organizing a peer-to-peer inter- and transdisciplinary academy program, and 3) facilitating an active ECR network at and across events. Afterwards there will be space for break-out discussions with the audience to reflect on the added value of such examples and allow participants to discuss and explore new ideas and approaches to improve ECR engagement and empowerment in future research projects.
The course invites ECRs, project leaders, and anyone involved in the management or participation of Research Projects, particularly those interested in improving ECR engagement and empowerment.

Building on our previous successful "Breaking Boundaries" short course from EGU23, which aimed at advancing science communication in the Global South, we are excited to propose a new session focused on writing compelling research proposals for funding. During our last EGU short course, we briefly highlighted the significant funding challenges faced by researchers from the Global South compared to their counterparts in the Global North. Thankfully, with the growing influence of Global South leaders, there has been an increase in collaborative opportunities, national/international and cross-border funding. However, securing this funding or position still hinges on the strength of a research proposal.
To address this need, we have designed a short interactive course dedicated to the art of writing strong research proposals for securing either research position or proposal fundings. This session will offer practical techniques and tips for creating compelling proposals and will include an open discussion. Additionally, we will provide insights from funding agencies based in Global South countries, highlighting the key elements they look for in proposals. This course is valuable for researchers at all career stages, with a particular emphasis on Early Career Scientists (ECS) looking to enhance their proposal-writing skills. Participants will benefit from:
1. Researchers' Perspective: Learn from successful grant recipients about the crucial points to consider when writing a research proposal.
2. Funding Agency Perspective: Gain insights from representatives of funding agencies in the Global South on their requirements and expectations.
3. ECS Perspective: Hear from fellow participants about their experiences and challenges in research proposal writing.
This short course is open to everyone with an interest in improving their proposal writing skills. ECS from the Global South are especially encouraged to participate as they will be provided with an opportunity to interact with researchers and funding agency representatives, gaining valuable insights into their expectations and experiences. For more information or inquiries, please feel free to contact the course convener.

The European Research Council (ERC) is a leading funding body at European level. It aims to support excellent investigator-driven frontier research across all fields of science. The ERC offers various outstanding funding opportunities, including grant budgets for individual scientists of up to €3.5 million. ERC calls are open to researchers around the world: all nationalities of applicants are welcome for projects carried out at a host institution in European Union member states or/and associated countries. At this session, the main features of ERC funding will be presented, including the recent changes implemented in the work programme concerning the evaluation process. Furthermore, two invited speakers, a current ERC grantee and a former member of the evaluation panel, will provide different perspectives of their experience with the ERC evaluation.

The scientific communication landscape in the digital era is rapidly becoming all about effectively delivering ideas in brief. As scientific conferences move from longer physical meetings to more condensed hybrid formats, not only are short presentations necessary for pitching yourself to senior scientists or your next entrepreneurial venture to Venture Capitalists, but also for promoting your research. The opportunities of networking rarely reveal themselves, unless you are able to tell a brief, informative, and compelling story about you and your research.
It is truly an art to engage people through these short presentations and ignite a fire in their hearts, which will burn long enough for them to remember you and reach out to you later about relevant opportunities. While practice makes perfect is the mantra for delivering power-packed short presentations, there are several tricks to make your content stand out and set yourself apart from the crowd.
In this hybrid format course, we will bring together ideas and tips from years of sci-comm experience to provide you a one stop shop with the tricks of the trade. Finally, a hands-on exercise where participants will receive structured feedback on all aspects of their talk will help solidify the learning outcomes. The learning objectives of this short course are as follows:
Structuring a killer elevator pitch – learning from 1/2/3-min examples
3 minute
2019 Monash 3MT Winner - Beatrice Chiew, Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Three Minute Thesis (3MT) 2013 QUT winner - Megan Pozzi
Knowing your audience – harnessing the power of tailored openings/closings
Captivating delivery – leveraging body language to your advantage
TED Talk: How to speak so that people want to listen: https://youtu.be/eIho2S0ZahI
Harnessing creativity - choosing the right medium
Enunciating to engage – communicating across borders
Effectively practising your pitch – making the best of your time + confidence (maybe also acting training - presentations are performances)
Early career and underrepresented scientists are particularly encouraged to participate as they can gain the most from the learning outcomes of this short course.

Crafting and publishing papers is a crucial part of science communication, but it can be challenging. Whether you are working on your first draft, or perfecting your tenth, there can still be uncertainties about good writing and the publishing process. This course aims to provide early career scientists with straightforward guidelines for effectively communicating their research and, consequently, enhancing their prospects of successful publication. In this short course you will have the opportunity to meet editors of internationally renowned journals in the field of geoscience, hydrology and biogeoscience. After a short introduction of the editors, we will explore various facets of scientific writing and publishing, such as:
• How to start and improve an efficient writing process?
• What are the duties, roles and rights of editors, authors and reviewers?
• How to choose a suitable journal for your manuscript and what is important for early career authors?
• How to address reviewers' comments?
In this short course, there will be an opportunity to have an open discussion about how to make your manuscript ready for submission and navigate the peer-reviewing process. Together with the editors from different journals, we will explore other aspects, complementary to writing a paper, such as preparing the cover letters, choosing a suitable journal and understanding your rights as an author.
If you like to learn what is required to become a good peer-reviewer join the short course: Meet the Editors (3): How to peer-review - Fundamentals & EGU’s model. Both short courses can be attended independently.

Peer-reviewing is the heart of quality control when it comes to publishing our scientific results. It is almost exclusively based on voluntary service by the scientific community itself. Yet peer-reviewers are currently the most limited human resource in scientific publishing. Insights about the peer-reviewing process are essential for the successful publication of your manuscript (if you are interested in more details, see also the short course “Meet the Editors (1 & 2): How to write, revise and publish your manuscript”), but the prospect of reviewing scientific manuscripts can appear daunting, especially to early career scientists. Open questions regarding the general role as reviewer, expectations by the journal editors, the degree of detail and pitfalls, but also ethical responsibilities may lead to doubts. This short course offers the opportunity to meet editors of internationally renowned journals – among others, from EGU journals – to get answers to those questions and to eliminate the doubts for one’s eligibility/aptitude as a reviewer:
• How is the peer-review process organized? How do editors search for and select reviewers?
• What are (and are not!) the duties and roles of reviewers?
• What are the ethical responsibilities as reviewer? How do I deal with conflict of interests?
• What are the benefits of voluntary peer-reviewing?
• Tips for my first review: What to focus on and how to structure?
• What are the dos and don’ts for appropriate peer-reviewing?
• What help can I get during the peer-review process?
Subsequently, the EGU peer-review model is presented as well as the details that are specific to the EGU journals. This includes the advantages of the EGU’s interactive open access publishing with multi-stage open peer review, as compared to traditional journals with closed peer review. Participants will have the opportunity to indicate their interest in the next edition of the EGU Peer Review Training (Fall 2025), where hands-on experience will be provided including reviewing preprints on EGUsphere, to complement the theory learned in the course. Participants who successfully complete the full training will be added to the reviewer data base for the EGU journals, so that they are visible to the journal editors and can efficiently contribute to the dissemination of high-quality science.

If you think your research is important and can make a difference in the world, but aren’t writing papers about how you’re communicating with the wider world, this is the session for you! To us, geoscience communication spans education, outreach, engagement and any studies into how any public (e.g. government, industry, an interest group) interacts with or consumes the geoscience that is your core business.

The session is a drop-in ‘clinic’ with the journal editors, so bring your ideas and questions!

The session will consist of roughly 10 mins of us talking, followed by small group or 1-to-1 discussion with a Geoscience Communication editor about your research idea – or how to integrate research into your geoscience communication activity (i.e. make it publishable).

It doesn’t matter if you know very little already. No question is too basic. It doesn’t matter how well developed (or not) your idea is. We can help you think about how to improve it, and to make it publishable – of course, we’d prefer Geoscience Communication. Alternatively, you could be an experienced geoscience communication practitioner who gets on with doing it, getting results, rather than writing a paper on it. In that case, we’d like to convince you that trying to publish is worth it!

Have you ever thought about improvising in your research? It might sound surprising, but the skills from improvisational theatre (improv) can offer exciting ways to approach science.

In this Short Course, we will introduce you to the world of improv—an art form in which performers create a scene that is barely or completely unplanned, with no written dialogue. While it may seem intimidating at first, frequent practice of improv is in fact beneficial in many areas, including neuroplasticity, emotional intelligence, collaborative and interactive pedagogy, communication, imagination and creativity. It can even boost self-confidence, reduce social anxiety and support those with neurodiversity.

Don’t worry, you won’t have to improvise on your own! We’ll guide you through fun, collaborative games and share improv-inspired tips and tricks to brainstorm research questions and explore new analysis methods.

This Short Course will be delivered in partnership with Hoopla!, a London-based improv school.

Geoscience communication often involves conveying complex concepts to diverse audiences across cultural and linguistic boundaries.

This short course is designed to equip you with the skills needed to communicate science effectively across cultures, focusing on the unique challenges geoscientists face in this context.

Through real-world examples drawn from personal and peers’ experiences, along with interactive exercises, we will explore how cultural perspectives shape the understanding of geoscientific data and how to tailor messages to approach different audiences.

You’ll learn practical communication strategies for addressing cultural differences in interpreting scientific concepts, translating complex geoscientific data into culturally relevant messages, and overcoming language barriers.
The ultimate aim is to tackle inequalities and promote Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in science outreach.

The short course will conclude with an open debate and Q&A. Bring your experience, have your say!
The way of doing outreach has radically changed in the last decades, and scientists can now take advantage of many channels and resources to tailor and deliver their message to the public: to name a few, scientists can do outreach through social media, by writing blogs, recording podcasts, or organising community events.
This short course aims to give practical examples of different outreach activities, providing tips and suggestions from personal and peers’ experiences to start and manage an outreach project. Specific attention will be paid to the current challenges of science communication, which will encompass the theme of credibility and reliability of the information, the role of communication in provoking a response to critical global issues, and how to tackle inequities and promote EDI in outreach, among others.
The last part of the course will be devoted to an open debate on specific hot topics regarding outreach. Have your say!

Transdisciplinary research offers a powerful approach to tackling complex challenges in natural hazards and risk management, but it also presents unique challenges, particularly for early career scientists and practitioners. This short course is specifically designed to equip early career participants with practical tools and strategies for effectively engaging in and contributing to transdisciplinary projects. By focusing on the cross-fertilisation of hard and social sciences, the course will provide actionable insights into how to communicate across disciplines, deliver impactful research, and find common ground for collaboration. Participants will engage in hands-on activities and discussions, drawing from the experiences of leading projects such as The HuT (https://thehut-nexus.eu), PARATUS (https://www.paratus-project.eu), MYRIAD (https://www.myriadproject.eu), and DIRECTED (https://directedproject.eu). Attendees are also welcome to join the scientific session and splinter meeting that are part of this unified path, allowing them to choose between engaging in the entire programme or specific parts according to their interests.

This two-unit short course aims at introducing conference participants to the basic concepts of geodiversity, geoheritage and geoconservation.
Geodiversity (the overall abiotic elements, their values and connections of the Earth) and geoheritage studies are multidisciplinary, drawing from all sides of geosciences and extending them into the humanities, geoarchaeology, spatial planning, territorial and risk management, economics, tourism, or culture using integrated and interdisciplinary research approaches. During the last three decades, geodiversity and geoheritage research experienced a considerable growth that confirm both scientific and public relevance of these topics as the science branch is in a close connection with the UN Sustainable Development Goals
In this course, the basic definitions of geodiversity, geoheritage and geoconservation and their connections to various science subjects and everyday life are explored by experienced researchers and Early Career Scientists with a range of backgrounds. We will cover the following subjects:
1. Introduction: Geodiversity and geoheritage: A multidisciplinary approach to valuing, conserving and managing abiotic nature
2. Principles and conceptual aspects of geodiversity research
3. How to assess geodiversity and why is it important?
Break
4. Geosite conservation: principles and management objectives
5. Geoheritage evaluation and managing conservation to disseminate geoscientific knowledge
6. Geotourism promotion of geoheritage – good practices

Our aim is to introduce participants to the basic concepts of this relatively young science field. Participants in the course will not only receive comprehensive theoretical knowledge but will also be actively engaged in practical activities. They will have the opportunity to apply various methodologies for geosite and geodiversity assessment, enhancing both their understanding and hands-on experience in the field. Participants will also have the chance to explore geoheritage through virtual field trips. At the end of the course a Q+A will provide the audience with a chance to interact with the panel. The course is aimed particularly at early career scientists, but anyone with an interest in geoheritage will find it useful. Attendees are invited to share and discuss their ideas, initiatives and plans that involve geoscientific heritage identification, evaluation, management or conservation throughout the whole course.

Effective risk communication is crucial for enhancing public understanding and response to disaster risks. This short course is designed to equip students, early-career scientists, experienced researchers, and science communicators with advanced tools and strategies for effective risk communication. Participants will learn about fundamental principles of risk communication, cognitive biases, risk perception, and the use of media and social media in conveying risk information. The course will also address how to adapt communication strategies to different environments and audiences, beyond the traditional sharing of scientific data. Contributing to the European Commission’s disaster resilience goal no. 2 on ‘Prepare - Increasing risk awareness and preparedness of the population’ and the preparEU programme, the course will provide practical skills to improve risk communication efforts and foster more resilient communities. Attendees are welcome to join the scientific session and splinter meetings, creating a unified path for those interested in a comprehensive exploration of risk communication

Choose a scientific paper. Now, picture it. Really, picture it in your head - if it were hanging on the wall of a museum as a painting, what would be in it? Whilst it may seem like a pointless thing to do, this exercise is more relevant than ever. From graphical abstracts to illustrated magazine covers to online article banners… eye-catching graphics open many doors when it comes to successfully communicating science, both inside and (particularly) outside specialist circles.

So, if visuals play such a significant role in drawing audiences in (pun intended), why don’t more scientists utilise illustration as a way to break the barrier between them and the public? For many, the answer simply is “I can’t really draw”. But what if you could?

Using principles and examples from stylized illustration, this hands-on short course will guide you through the process of creating a scientific illustration from start to finish, and prove to you that you can, in fact, draw. If you wish to, you will be able to use the last part of the course to work on your first scientific illustration, inspired by a piece of work chosen by you. Whilst I am a digital illustrator, you may choose any media to work with, this is not a course for learning how to draw with pixels!

At the very least, you will never lose at Pictionary again ;)

Visualisation of scientific data is an integral part of scientific understanding and communication. Scientists have to make decisions about the most effective way to communicate their results every day. How do we best visualise the data to understand it ourselves? How do we best visualise our results to communicate with others? Common pitfalls can be overcrowding, overcomplicated or suboptimal plot types, or inaccessible colour schemes. Scientists may also get overwhelmed by the graphics requirements of different publishers, for presentations, posters, etc. This short course is designed to help scientists improve their data visualisation skills so that the research outputs would be more accessible within their own scientific community and reach a wider audience.
Topics discussed include:
- golden rules of DataViz;
- choosing the most appropriate plot type and designing a good DataViz;
- graphical elements, fonts and layout;
- colour schemes, accessibility and inclusiveness;
- creativity vs simplicity – finding the right balance;
- figures for scientific journals (graphical requirements, rights and permissions);
- tools for effective data visualisation.
This course is co-organized by the Young Hydrologic Society (YHS), enabling networking and skill enhancement of early career researchers worldwide. Our goal is to help you make your figures more accessible to a wider audience, informative and beautiful. If you feel your graphs could be improved, we welcome you to join this short course.

Staying up-to-date with the latest research in your field can be challenging, with new scientific papers, news articles, and regulations constantly emerging. Fortunately, there are ways to stay informed. In this session, we offer practical advice on maintaining an up-to-date literature review over the long term. We'll cover essential tools and strategies for identifying relevant works, organizing them, and referring back to them as your field evolves. Join us for an engaging conversation where participants can exchange insights and learn from each other's experiences in navigating their literature review.

Imagine you have a wonderful and ancient butterfly collection that you would like to catalogue and digitalize. And in such a way that other scientists have added value from it. What additional considerations would you need, apart from the technical requirements? What’s the right way to describe your collection, so that not only specialists can find the data, but also an engineer, looking for inspiration for new aerodynamic concepts or an artist, looking for specific, natural colours, patterns or shapes.

Working together with specialists from your own research field is easy – you think in the same way, use the same language, the same vocabulary. It's the same in every discipline, in every field of research, and it's the interdisciplinarity that is the challenge. In Earth System Science the number of disciplines is huge, as is the number of well known community standards, controlled vocabularies, ontologies … without the translation (mapping) from one discipline to another, without some help/tool to collect and find such terminologies – it’s chaos.

In this course we want to analyze together the gaps that arise in your daily research activities due to interdisciplinary work and projects. What are the misunderstandings, the data misinterpretations you are facing? In an interactive process you will learn more about a solution to bring order to the chaos - terminologies and the services around them. The aim is to make it easier for you to produce and/or understand reusable data in the future. FAIR is more than a buzzword - let's bring it to life!

Discover the basics of Geodesy and geodetic data! Geodetic data, from GNSS to gravity measurements, play a crucial role in various Earth sciences, including hydrology, glaciology, geodynamics, oceanography, and seismology. Curious about what these data can (and cannot) tell us? This short course offers a crash course in core geodetic concepts, giving you the insights you need to better understand the advantages and limitations of geodetic data. While you won’t become a full-fledged geodesist by the end, you’ll walk away with a clearer picture of how to use these datasets across various fields. Led by scientists from the Geodesy division, this course is open to all, whether you frequently work with geodetic data or are simply curious about what geodesists do. Expect lively discussions and practical insights. For all geodesists, get the chance to learn what non-geodesists need when working with geodetic data!

This 60-minute short course is part of a quintet of introductory 101 courses on Geodesy, Geodynamics, Geology, Seismology, and Tectonic Modelling. All courses are led by experts who aim to make complex Earth science concepts accessible to non-experts.

This short course aims to introduce non-geologists to the geological, petrological, and morphological principles that are used by geologists to study system earth.

The data available to geologists is often minimal, incomplete, and only partly representative for the geological history of our planet. To overcome these challenges, geologists need to learn the necessary observational skills, field, and analytical techniques needed to acquire and interpret the data, in addition to developing a logical way of thinking.

In this course we cover the following subjects:
1) Introduction to the principles of geology.
2) Geochronology and isotope geochemistry.
3) Structural geology and deformation.
4) Landscape morphology as tectonic constraints.
5) Q&A!

Our aim is not to make you the next specialist in geology, but we will try and make you aware of the challenges a geologist faces when they go out into the field or work in the lab. We will also address currently used methodologies for the collection of geological data, to give other earth scientists a feel for the capabilities and limitations of geological research.

This 60-minute short course is part of a quintet of introductory 101 courses on Geodynamics, Seismology, Tectonics, and Geodesy. All courses are led by experts who aim to make complex Earth science concepts accessible to non-experts.

During this short course, which is open to anyone with a general interest in plate tectonic processes, we will introduce the participants to the principles and application of analogue models in interpreting tectonic systems.

Tectonic processes act at different spatial and temporal scales. What we observe today in the field or via direct and indirect measurement is often just a snapshot of processes that stretch over hundreds or thousands of km, and take millions of years to unfold. Thus, it is challenging for researchers to interpret and recontrust the dynamic evolution of tectonic systems. Analogue modeling provides a tool to overcome this limitation, allowing for the physical reproduction of tectonic processes on practical temporal and spatial scales (Myr → hrs, km → cm/m). Of course, the reliability of analogue models is a function of the assumptions and simplifications involved, but still their usefulness in interpreting data is outstanding.

In this course we will go through the following outline:
- Aims and history of analogue modelling
- Model setups and materials
- Model scaling
- Monitoring techniques
- Interpreting model results
- Interactive demonstration: Running a live model :)
- Q&A

The final aim of this short course will be to present analogue modeling as a valid technique to be applied side by side with observations and data from the real world to improve our interpretation of the evolution of natural tectonic systems. We also intend to inspire the course participants to develop and run their own analogue tectonic modeling projects, and to provide them with the basic skills, as well as directions to find the additional resources and knowledge required to do so.

This short course is part of a quintet of introductory 101 courses on Geodesy, Geodynamics, Geology, Seismology, and Tectonic Modelling. All courses are led by experts who aim to make complex Earth science concepts accessible to non-experts.

The concepts and tools of algebraic topology can be applied to the evolution of systems in both phase space and physical space, as well as to the interesting back-and-forth excursions between these two spaces. The way that dynamics and topology interact is at the core of the present course.

Starting with the early contributions of knot theory to nonlinear dynamics, we introduce the templex, a novel concept in algebraic topology that considers a flow in physical or phase space with no restrictions to its dimensions, drawing on both homology groups and graph theory. The templex approach is illustrated through its application to paradigmatic chaotic attractors – like the Lorenz or Rössler attractors – as well as to non-chaotic flows. Applications to kinematic and dynamic models of the ocean gyres and to idealized models of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) are presented, along with the topological analysis of oceanographic time series derived from altimetric velocity fields. Lagrangian ocean analysis is a key element of the course.

The extension of the templex concept to the noise-perturbed chaotic attractors of random dynamical systems theory is presented, leading to the definition of topological tipping points (TTPs). TTPs enable the study of successive bifurcations of climate models beyond those known from the classical theory of autonomous dynamical systems, as well as of those more recently added by consideration of tipping points in nonautonomous systems.

We thus propose to start a journey through the mathematical concepts and tools that characterize the topological approach to nonlinear dynamics. This approach goes beyond purely metric, i.e., non-topological, descriptions of the mechanisms that are responsible for higher and higher versions of irregular behavior, from deterministic chaos to various forms of turbulence. These novel tools provide challenging and promising inroads for understanding the effects of anthropogenic forcing on the climate system’s intrinsic variability.

Data assimilation (DA) is widely used in the study of the atmosphere, the ocean, the land surface, hydrological processes, etc. The powerful technique combines prior information from numerical model simulations with observations to provide a better estimate of the state of the system than either the data or the model alone. This short course will introduce participants to the basics of data assimilation, including the theory and its applications to various disciplines of geoscience. An interactive hands-on example of building a data assimilation system based on a simple numerical model will be given. This will prepare participants to build a data assimilation system for their own numerical models at a later stage after the course.
In summary, the short course introduces the following topics:

(1) DA theory, including basic concepts and selected methodologies.
(2) Examples of DA applications in various geoscience fields.
(3) Hands-on exercise in applying data assimilation to an example numerical model using open-source software.

This short course is aimed at people who are interested in data assimilation but do not necessarily have experience in data assimilation, in particular early career scientists (BSc, MSc, PhD students and postdocs) and people who are new to data assimilation.

Model Land is a conceptual place within the boundaries of a model. When we confuse a Model Land for the real world, we can be ignorant to the assumptions, limitations, uncertainties, and biases inherent in our models. These things need to be carefully understood and considered before we use models to inform decisions about the real world and by doing so we can escape from our Model Lands (Thompson, 2019).
However, in order to escape, we need to explore our Model Lands, mapping them and developing a deeper understanding of their rules and boundaries. In this short course we will present a framework inspired by tabletop roleplay games (TTRPGs) that will bring Model Lands to life. Either using your own model or one of our examples you will learn how to build a world that follows its rules, how to investigate what it would be like to exist within that world, and how to share with others what you have learnt.
Please bring along a pen and paper and be prepared to share your Model Lands. We want to encourage creative expression, so if you have a flair for drawing, poetry, games design, or interpretive dance, feel free to bring along the means to share your creations through whatever medium you prefer.

Software plays a pivotal role in various scientific disciplines. Research software may include source code files, algorithms, computational workflows, and executables. It refers mainly to code meant to produce data, less so, for example, plotting scripts one might create to analyze this data. An example of research software in our field are computational models of the environment. Models can aid pivotal decision-making by quantifying the outcomes of different scenarios, e.g., varying emission scenarios. How can we ensure the robustness and longevity of such research software? This short course teaches the concept of sustainable research software. Sustainable research software is easy to update and extend. It will be easier to maintain and extend that software with new ideas and stay in sync with the most recent scientific findings. This maintainability should also be possible for researchers who did not originally develop the code, which will ultimately lead to more reproducible science.

This short course will delve into sustainable research software development principles and practices. The topics include:
- Properties and metrics of sustainable research software
- Writing clear, modular, reusable code that adheres to coding standards and best practices of sustainable research software (e.g., documentation, unit testing, FAIR for research software).
- Using simple code quality metrics to develop high-quality code
- Documenting your code using platforms like Sphinx for Python

We will apply these principles to a case study of a reprogrammed version of the global WaterGAP Hydrological Model (https://github.com/HydrologyFrankfurt/ReWaterGAP). We will showcase its current state in a GitHub environment along with example source code. The model is written in Python but is also accessible to non-python users. The principles demonstrated apply to all coding languages and platforms.

This course is intended for early-career researchers who create and use research models and software. Basic programming or software development experience is required. The course has limited seats available on a first-come-first-served basis.

Code is read far more often than it's written, yet some still believe that complex, unreadable code equates to a better algorithm. In reality, the opposite is true. Writing code that not only works but is also clear, maintainable, and easy to modify can significantly reduce the cognitive load of coding, freeing up more time for scientific research. This short course introduces essential programming practices, from simple yet powerful techniques like effective naming, to more advanced topics such as unit testing, version control, and managing virtual environments. Through real-life examples, we will explore how to transform code from convoluted to comprehensible.

Python is one of the fastest growing programming languages and has moved to the forefront in the earth system sciences (ESS), due to its usability, the applicability to a range of different data sources and, last but not least, the development of a considerable number of ESS-friendly and ESS-specific packages.

This interactive Python course is aimed at ESS researchers who are interested in adding a new programming language to their repertoire. Except for some understanding of fundamental programming concepts (e.g. loops, conditions, functions etc.), this course presumes no previous knowledge of and experience in Python programming.

The goal of this course is to give the participants an introduction to the Python fundamentals and an overview of a selection of the most widely-used packages in ESS. The applicability of those packages ranges from (simple to advanced) number crunching (e.g. Numpy), to data analysis (e.g. Xarray, Pandas) to data visualization (e.g. Matplotlib).

The course will be grouped into different sections, based on topics discussed, packages introduced and field of application. Furthermore, each section will have an introduction to the main concepts e.g. fundamentals of a specific package and an interactive problem-set part.

This course welcomes active participation in terms of both on-site/virtual discussion and coding. To achieve this goal, the i) course curriculum and material will be provided in the form of Jupyter Notebooks ii) where the participants will have the opportunity to code up the iii) solutions to multiple problem sets and iv) have a pre-written working solution readily available. In these interactive sections of the course, participants are invited to try out the newly acquired skills and code up potentially different working solutions.

We very much encourage everyone who is interested in career development, data analysis and learning a new programming to join our course.

Julia offers a fresh approach to scientific computing, high-performance computing and data crunching. Recently designed from the ground up, Julia avoids many of the weak points of older, widely used programming languages in science such as Python, Matlab, and R. Julia is an interactive scripting language, yet it executes with similar speed as C(++) and Fortran. Its qualities make it an appealing tool for the geoscientist.

Julia has been gaining traction in the geosciences over the last years in applications ranging from high-performance simulations, data processing, geostatistics, machine learning, differentiable programming to scientific modelling. The Julia package ecosystem necessary for geosciences has substantially matured, which makes it readily usable for research.

This course provides a hands-on introduction to get you started with Julia as well as a showcase of geodata visualisation and ocean, atmosphere and ice simulations.

The hands-on introduction will cover:
- learn about the Julia language and what sets it apart from others
- write simple Julia code to get you started with scientific programming (arrays, loops, input/output, etc.)
- installing Julia packages and management of package environments (similar, e.g., to virtual-environments in Python)

The show-case will feature a selection of:
- Visualisation of Geo-Data using the plotting library Makie.jl and various geodata libraries
- Global ocean modelling with Oceananigans.jl on CPUs and GPUs
- Interactive atmospheric modelling with SpeedyWeather.jl
- Ice flow modelling and data integration and sensitivity analysis using automatic differentiation on GPUs with FastIce.jl

Ideally, participants should install Julia on their laptops to allow a smooth start into the course. We will provide detailed documentation for this installation. However, we will also provide a JupyterHub, albeit connectivity to it maybe spotty depending on Wi-Fi reception.

Assessing the spatial heterogeneity of environmental variables is a challenging problem in real applications when numerical approaches are needed. This is made more difficult by the complexity of Natural Phenomena, which are characterized by (Chiles and Delfiner, 2012):
- being unknown: their knowledge is often incomplete, derived from limited and sparse samples;
- dimensionality: they can be represented in two- or three-dimensional domains;
- complexity: deterministic interpolators (i.e., Inverse Distance Weighted) may fail in providing exhaustive spatial distribution models, as they do not consider uncertainty;
- uniqueness: invoking a probabilistic approach, they can be assumed as a realization of a random process and described by regionalized variables.
Geostatistics provides optimal solutions to this issue, offering tools to accurately predict values and uncertainty in unknown locations while accounting for the spatial correlation of samples.

The course will address theoretical and practical methods for evaluating data heterogeneity in computational domains, exploiting the interplay between geometry processing, geostatistics, and stochastic approaches. It will be mainly split into 4 parts, as follows:
- Theoretical Overview: Introduction to Random Function Theory and Measures of Spatial Variability
- Modeling Spatial Dependence: An automatic solution to detect both isotropic and anisotropic spatial correlation structures
- The role of Unstructured Meshes: Exploration of flexible, robust, and adaptive geometric modeling, coupled with stochastic simulation algorithms
- Filling the Mesh: Developing a compact and tangible spatial model, that incorporates all alternative realizations, statistics, and uncertainty

The course will offer a comprehensive understanding of key steps to create a spatial predictive model with geostatistics. We will also promote MUSE (Modeling Uncertainty as a Support for Environments) (Miola et al., STAG2022) as an innovative and user-friendly open-source software, that implements the entire methodology. Tips on how to use MUSE will be provided, along with explanations of its structure and executable commands. Impactful examples will be used to show the effectiveness of geostatistical modeling with MUSE and the flexibility to use it in different scenarios, varying from geology to geochemistry.

The course is designed for everyone interested in geostatistics and spatial distribution models, regardless of their prior experience.

3D data are more and more available and used in earth sciences for a large variety of purposes (glacial changes, forestry, erosion in rivers, changes of land use, sediment transport, landslides, etc). A large variety of methods are now available to acquire such data on the field (terrestrial or airborne LiDAR, photogrammetry from drones or cameras). Our team has developed two plugins freely available in CloudCompare to process point clouds: 3DMASC (Letard et al, 2023) for general purpose classification, and G3Point (Steer et al, 2023) for grain segmentation and features extraction. In this short course, participants will learn how to efficiently use 3DMASC to classify fluvial environments (typically vegetation, rock and sediments) and then apply G3Point on sediments to segment grains and extract their geometries (size, orientation). Workshop material: TLS data set acquired along a fluvial reach (small bedrock gorges and an alluvial bar) provided to the participants.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is a noninvasive method to detect biodiversity in a variety of environments that has many exciting applications for geosciences. In this short course, we introduce eDNA metabarcoding to a geoscience audience and present potential research applications.

During the past 75 years, radiocarbon dating has been applied across a wide range of disciplines, including, e.g. archaeology, geology, hydrology, geophysics, atmospheric science, oceanography, and paleoclimatology, to name but a few. Radiocarbon analysis is extensively used in environmental research as a chronometer (geochronology) or as a tracer for carbon sources and natural pathways. In the last two decades, advances in accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) have enabled the analysis of very small quantities, as small as tens of micrograms of carbon. This has opened new possibilities, such as dating specific compounds (biomarkers) in sediments and soils. Other innovative applications include distinguishing between old (fossil) and natural (biogenic) carbon or detecting illegal trafficking of wildlife products such as ivory, tortoiseshells, and fur skins. Despite the wide range of applications, archives, and systems studied with the help of radiocarbon dating, the method has a standard workflow, starting from sampling through the preparation and analysis, arriving at the final data that require potential reservoir corrections and calibration.

This short course will provide an overview of radiocarbon dating, highlighting the state-of-the-art methods and their potential in environmental research, particularly in paleoclimatology. After a brief introduction to the method, participants will delve into practical examples of its application in the study of past climates, focusing on the 14C method and how we arrive at the radiocarbon age.
Applications in paleoclimate research and other environmental fields
Sampling and preparation
Calibration programs
We strongly encourage discussions around radiocarbon research and will actively address problems related to sampling and calibration. This collaborative approach will enhance the understanding and application of radiocarbon dating in the respective fields.

Database documentation and sharing is a crucial part of the scientific process, and more scientists are choosing to share their data on centralised data repositories. These repositories have the advantage of guaranteeing immutability (i.e., the data cannot change), which is not so amenable to developing living databases (e.g., in continuous citizen science initiatives). At the same time, citizen science initiatives are becoming more and more popular in various fields of science, from natural hazards to hydrology, ecology and agronomy.

In this context, distributed databases offer an innovative approach to both data sharing and evolution. These systems have the distinct advantage of becoming more resilient and available as more users access the same data, and as distributed systems, contrarily to decentralised ones, do not use blockchain technology, they are orders of magnitude more efficient in data storage as well as completely free to use. Distributed databases can also mirror exising data, so that scientists can keep working in their preferred Excel, OpenOffice, or other software while automatically syncing database changes to the distributed web in real time.

This workshop will present the general concepts behind distributed, peer-to-peer systems. Attendees will then be guided through an interactive activity on Constellation, a scientific software for distributed databases, learning how to both create their own databases as well as access and use others' data from the network. Potential applications include citizen science projects for hydrological data collection, invasive species monitoring, or community participation in managing natural hazards such as floods.

Interdisciplinarity is becoming a common approach to solve socio-ecological problems, but datasets from different disciplines often lack interoperability. In this SC we will explore interoperability levels in the context of integrated research infrastructure services for the climate change crisis.

Since the breakthrough of datacubes as a contributor to Analysis-Ready Data, a series of implementations have been announced, and likewise services. However, often these are described through publications only.

In this session, hands-on demos are mandatory. Speakers must spend maximum 50% of their time on presenting slides etc., and minimum 50% to live demos of their tools. To guarantee fair and equal conditions, only in-person presentation will be allowed. Presenters are invited to share their latest and greatest functionality and data, but must balance this with their confidence that the demo will work out of the box.

This enables the audience to see first-hand what datacube features are effectively implemented, how stable they are under strong timing conditions, and what their real-life performance. The expected outcome for attendees is to get a realistic overview on the datacube tools and service landscape, and to assess how much each tool supports their individual needs, such as analysis-readiness.

Extreme event attribution (EEA) emerged in the early 2000s to assess the impact of human-induced climate change on extreme weather events. Since then, EEA has expanded into different approaches that help us understand how climate change influences these events.

In unconditional approaches, such as the risk-based method, the oceanic and atmospheric conditions are largely left unconstrained. In contrast, conditional approaches focus on constraining the specific dynamics that lead to an event. One example is the analogues approach, where the synoptic atmospheric circulation is held relatively fixed. Both approaches can be used to assess changes in the likelihood, intensity, or both, of extreme events.

In this short course, we will examine the robustness of the analogues method for EEA, explore different strategies for defining analogues, and discuss their applications in attribution studies.

The ongoing atmospheric warming has a huge effect on the components of terrestrial cryosphere. Therefore, there is a great need to have operational monitoring networks to understand the impacts and long-term changes of the cryosphere. Global Observing Monitoring Systems recognize three major Essential Climate Variables in permafrost, which are permafrost temperature, active layer thickness and rock glacier velocity. The monitoring of these parameters is covered by groups of Global Terrestrial Network – Permafrost (GTN-P) and Rock Glacier Inventories and Kinematics (RGIK), which will collaborate on the Short Course organisation. Our aim is to provide the participants: a) general background on GTN-P and RGIK activities b) The latest updates and demonstration of new version of GTN-P database c) Current development of RGIK database and monitoring standards

Structural geologic modeling is a crucial part of many geoscientific workflows. There is a wide variety of applications, from geological research to applied fields such as geothermics, geotechnical engineering, and natural resource exploration. This short course introduces participants to GemPy, a powerful and successful open-source Python library for 3D geological modeling. GemPy allows users to generate geological models efficiently and integrates well with the Python ecosystem, making it a valuable resource for both researchers and industry professionals.
The course will cover the following topics:
(1) Modeling approach and theoretical background: An introduction to the principles behind implicit structural geological modeling.
(2) Creating a GemPy model: A step-by-step guide to building a basic geological model using GemPy.
(3) Open Source Project: An overview of GemPy's development, community, and opportunities for contribution.
(4) Outlook and applications: Exploration of the wide-ranging applications of GemPy in various geoscientific fields, including the link to geophysical inversion. Coding examples for advanced functionalities and examples from publications.
This interactive course is designed for both beginners and those with some experience in geological modeling. Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop to actively engage in the tutorials and apply their newly acquired skills by writing their own code. While basic Python knowledge and a pre-installed Python environment are beneficial, they are not mandatory for participation.

In April 2023, EPOS, the European Plate Observing System launched the EPOS Data Portal (https://www.ics-c.epos-eu.org/), which provides access to multidisciplinary data, data products, services and software from solid Earth science domain. Currently, ten thematic communities provide input to the EPOS Data Portal through services (APIs): Anthropogenic Hazards, Geological Information and Modelling, Geomagnetic Observations, GNSS Data and Products, Multi-Scale Laboratories, Near Fault Observatories, Satellite Data, Seismology, Tsunami and Volcano Observations.
The EPOS Data Portal enables search and discovery of assets thanks to metadata and visualisation in map, table or graph views, including download of the assets, with the objective to enable multi-, inter- transdisciplinary research by following FAIR principles.
This short course will provide an introduction to the EPOS ecosystem, demonstration of the EPOS Data Portal and hands-on training by following a scientific use case using the online portal. It is expected that participants have scientific background in one or more scientific domains listed above.
The training especially targets young researchers and all those who need to combine multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary data in their research. The use of the EPOS data Portal will simplify data search for Early Career Scientists and potentially help them in accelerating their career development.
Feedback from participants will be collected and used for further improvements of the Data Portal.

Eddy covariance measurements are instrumental for our understanding of carbon and water cycles. It allows us to examine local conditions at the given site or provide a global picture of the interaction of the terrestrial ecosystems with the overlaying atmosphere through data integration in modeling frameworks. The application of the method is multifaceted, and the data processing consists of multiple steps (i.e. raw data processing, quality control, gap-filling, flux partitioning, aggregation) that are dependent and result in a processing chain. Setting up this processing chain can be daunting, especially for new teams not connected to station networks.
In this workshop, we will provide a brief introductory presentation concerning the eddy covariance post-processing chain (30 mins), show useful resources and software (15 mins), and mainly focus on the independent hands-on training using available commented tutorials or complete processing workflow. The attendees will have a chance to learn how to use openeddy to 1) read and write data with units; 2) remap variable names; 3) merge data and fill gaps in timestamp; 4) plot eddy covariance data; 5) flag and remove spurious measurements and 6) aggregate gap-filled data and evaluate uncertainty. They will also have a chance to learn how to use REddyProc standard post-processing routines for 1) the estimation of the u*-threshold; 2) gap-filling, 3) flux-partitioning, and 4) the derivation of ecosystem properties using the bigleaf R package. The workshop could also be a good opportunity to meet the software developers, ask questions and interact with other colleagues.
Participants should come with a laptop with installed recent versions of R, RStudio, and the openeddy, REddyProc and bigleaf R packages. To work with openeddy tutorials and workflow files, you will also need to download additional data sets (see below).
openeddy package installation: https://github.com/lsigut/openeddy#installation
openeddy tutorials installation: https://github.com/lsigut/openeddy_tutorials#installation
eddy covariance workflow instructions: https://github.com/lsigut/EC_workflow#usage
REddyProc vignettes: https://github.com/bgctw/REddyProc/tree/master/vignettes
bigleaf vignette: https://github.com/cran/bigleaf/blob/master/vignettes/

In a changing climate world, extreme weather and climate events have become more frequent and severe, and are expected to continue increasing in this century and beyond. Unprecedented extremes in temperature, heavy precipitation, droughts, storms, river floodings and related hot and dry compound events have increased over the last decades, impacting negatively broad socio-economic spheres (such as agriculture), producing several damages to infrastructure, but also putting in risk human well-being, to name but a few. The above have raised many concerns in our society and within the scientific community about our current climate but our projected future. Thus, a better understanding of the climate and the possible changes we will face, is strongly needed. . In order to give answers to those questions, and address a wide range of uncertainties, very large data volumes are needed across different spatial (from local-regional to global) and temporal scales (past, current, future), but sources are multiple (observations, satellite, models, reanalysis, etc), and their resolution may vary each other. To deal with huge amounts of information, and take advantage of their different resolution and properties, high-computational techniques within Artificial Intelligence models are explored in climate and weather research. In this short-course, a novel method using Deep Learning models to detect and characterize extreme weather and climate events will be presented. This method can be applied to several types of extreme events, but a first implementation on which we will focus in the short-course, is its ability to detect past heatwaves. Discussions will take place on the method, and also its applicability to different types of extreme events. The course will be developed in python, but we encourage the climate and weather community to join the short-course and the discussion!

The analysis and visualisation of data is fundamental to research across the earth and space sciences. The Pangeo (https://pangeo.io) community has built an ecosystem of tools designed to simplify these workflows, centred around the Xarray library for n-dimensional data handling and Dask for parallel computing. In this short course, we will offer a gradual introduction to the Pangeo toolkit, through which participants will learn the skills required to scale their local scientific workflows through cloud computing or large HPC with minimal changes to existing codes.
The course is beginner-friendly but assumes a prior understanding of the Python language. We will guide you through hands-on jupyter notebooks that showcase scalable analysis of in-situ, satellite observation and earth system modelling datasets to apply your learning. By the end of this course, you will understand how to:
- Efficiently access large public data archives from Cloud storage using the Pangeo ecosystem of open source software and infrastructure.
- Leverage labelled arrays in Xarray to build accessible, reproducible workflows
- Use chunking to scale a scientific data analysis with Dask
All the Python packages and training materials used are open-source (e.g., MIT, Apache-2, CC-BY-4). Participants will need a laptop and internet access but will not need to install anything. We will be using the free and open Pangeo@EOSC (European Open Sicence Cloud) platform for this course. We encourage attendees from all career stages and fields of study (e.g., atmospheric sciences, cryosphere, climate, geodesy, ocean sciences) to join us for this short course. We look forward to an interactive session and will be hosting a Q&A and discussion forum at the end of the course, including opportunities to get more involved in Pangeo and open source software development. Join us to learn about open, reproducible, and scalable Earth science!
Preparation: We recommend learners with no prior knowledge of Python review resources such as the Software Carpentry training material and Project Pythia in advance of this short course. Participants should bring a laptop with an internet connection. No software installation is required as resources will be accessed online using the Pangeo@EOSC platform. Temporary user accounts will be provided for the course and we will also teach attendees how to request an account on Pangeo@EOSC to continue working on the platform after the training course.

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is probably the widest and most known crowdsourced database of geospatial information. Its data have the potential to be harnessed to address a variety of scientific and policy questions, from urban planning to demographic studies, environmental monitoring, energy simulations and many others.
Understanding the structure and the variety of content in OSM can enable researchers and policymakers to use it as a relevant dataset for their specific objectives.
Moreover, familiarity with tools and services for filtering and extracting data per geographic area or topic can empower users to tailor OSM data to meet their unique needs. Additionally, learning to contribute new data to OSM enriches the database and fosters a collaborative environment that supports ongoing geospatial research and community engagement both for researchers themselves and also in interactions with stakeholders and citizens. By actively participating in the OSM community, geoscientists can ensure that the data remains current and relevant, ultimately enhancing the impact of their work in addressing pressing environmental and societal challenges.
The short course will begin with an introduction to the concepts and content of OpenStreetMap, followed by a brief review of services and tools for filtering, extracting, and downloading data. Participants will engage in hands-on activities to contribute new data directly, along with hints and tips on how to understand and evaluate the pros and cons of its open and collaborative foundational principles.

Accurate and reliable observational data are fundamental for understanding climate dynamics, assessing climate change impacts, and informing adaptation strategies. However, the quality and consistency of observational datasets are contingent upon adherence to standardized measurement protocols and rigorous uncertainty assessment methodologies. Reference measurements are the only traceable to the International System of Units (SI) and provided with a robust quantification of measurement uncertainty. This Short Course will guide the participants on improving knowledge and usage of reference measurements for climate studies and applications, by introducing three subtopics:
1. Reference upper air measurements
2. Near surface reference measurements
3. Precipitable water vapour from reference and reprocessed GNSS timeseries
Participants will be introduced to the theory, the contest and the potential applications in using reference measurements to characterize the atmosphere and investigate climate variability. Practical example of how to use reference measurements will be shown and discussed, also exploring the Copernicus Climate Data Store, currently hosting a few reference datasets.

WEkEO offers a single access point to all of the environmental data provided by the Copernicus programme, as well as additional data from its four partner organisations. While data access is the first step for research based on EO data, the challenges of handling data soon become overwhelming with the increasing volume of Earth Observation data available. To cope with this challenge and to tame the Big Earth Data, WEkEO offers a cloud-based processing service for Earth Observation data coming from the Copernicus programme and beyond.
This course will explain new trends and developments in accessing, analysing and visualizing earth observation data by introducing concepts around serverless processing, parallel processing of big data and data cube generation in the cloud.
The session will begin with a theoretical introduction to cloud-based big data processing and data cube generation, followed by a demonstration how the participants can utilize these concepts within the WEkEO environment using its tools. Participants will have the opportunity to apply the concepts and tools in multi-disciplinary environmental use cases bringing together different kinds of satellite data and earth observation products as data cubes in the cloud.
The course will start with a beginner-level introduction and demonstration before introducing more advanced functionalities of the WEkEO services. Prior knowledge of satellite data analysis/Python programming would be an advantage but is not a prerequisite. Comprehensive training material will be provided during the course to ensure that participants with varying degree of knowledge of data processing can follow and participate.