Multiple Session Announcements and Calls for Abstracts - EGU General Assembly

Date

7 December 2011

Multiple Session Announcements and Calls for Abstracts
European Geoscience Union General Assembly
22-27 April 2012
Vienna, Austria

Abstract submission deadline for all sessions:
Tuesday, 17 January 2012

CR1.50 - Earth Observations in Support of Cold Regions Atmospheric
and Hydrology Research and Operational Communities
CR4.2 - High-Elevation & High-Latitude Permafrost (HELP): Ground
Measurements, Remote Sensing, and Modeling
CR4.3 - Earth and Extraterrestrial Permafrost and Methane: Changes,
History, Impacts, and Projections
GD2.3 - Crustal Heatflow and its Influence on the Earth System
OS2.2/EG3/CL2.12 - Advances in Understanding of the
Multi-Disciplinary Dynamics of the Southern European Seas
(Mediterranean and Black Sea)

CR1.50 - Earth Observations in Support of Cold Regions Atmospheric
and Hydrology Research and Operational Communities

Organizers of Session CR1.50, "Earth Observations in Support of Cold
Regions Atmospheric and Hydrology Research and Operational Communities,"
announce a call for abstracts. The session will be convened at the
European Geoscience Union (EGU) General Assembly, 22-27 April 2012 in
Vienna, Austria.

Lake and river ice play a key role in the physical, biological, and
chemical processes of cold region freshwater. The frequency and size of
lakes greatly influence the magnitude and timing of landscape-scale
evaporative and sensible heat inputs to the atmosphere and are important
to regional climatic and meteorological processes. River-ice is also one
of the major components of the terrestrial cryosphere. It affects an
extensive portion of the global hydrologic system, particularly in the
Northern Hemisphere where major ice covers develop on 29% of the total
river length and seasonal ice affects 58%. River-ice duration and
break-up exerts significant control on the timing and magnitude of
extreme hydrologic events such as low flows and floods. Earth
Observation (EO) technology represents a unique tool to support the
research and operational communities to characterize and monitor river
and lake ice dynamics as a key component of the North Hydrology System.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is funding the initiative called North
Hydrology, in support of the international efforts coordinated by the
Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) project of the World Climate Research
Programme (WCRP), to exploit the use of EO technology, models, and in
situ data to improve the characterization of river and lake ice
processes and their contribution to the Northern Hydrology system. North
Hydrology aims to develop a portfolio of novel multi-mission
geo-information products, maximizing the use of ESA satellite data, to
respond to the scientific requirements of the CliC community and the
operational requirements of the weather and climate operational agencies
(regional to global scale), and the requirements of the operational user
community to better characterize river-ice (and glacier temporary lakes)
dynamics in flood forecasting models at the basin scale.

This session invites contributions related to the development of
EO-based retrieval algorithms for monitoring of lake ice and surface
temperature, river ice, and glacier hydraulics and outburst floods; 2)
the current representation of freshwater ice and water temperature in
numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, regional climate models
(RCMs), and hydrological models (HMs); and EO data assimilation of ice
cover and water surface temperature in NWP, RCMs, and HMs.

The abstract submission deadline for this and all other sessions is
Tuesday, 17 January 2012 at midnight CET. To submit an abstract, please
log in or create an account at:
https://administrator.copernicus.org/authentication.php.

For further information, please contact:
Claude R. Duguay
Email: crduguay [at] uwaterloo.ca

CR4.2 - High-Elevation & High-Latitude Permafrost (HELP): Ground
Measurements, Remote Sensing, and Modeling
CR4.3 - Earth and Extraterrestrial Permafrost and Methane: Changes,
History, Impacts, and Projections

Organizers of Session CR4.2, "High-Elevation & High-Latitude Permafrost
(HELP): Ground Measurements, Remote Sensing, and Modeling;" and Session
CR4.3, "Earth and Extraterrestrial Permafrost and Methane: Changes,
History, Impacts, and Projections" announce a call for abstracts. The
sessions will be convened at the European Geoscience Union (EGU) General
Assembly, 22-27 April 2012 in Vienna, Austria.

Both sessions are intended for a broad array of the latest advancements
and findings of changes in active layer and permafrost and associated
feedback and forcing physical systems on Earth (including seabed
permafrost) and other planetary bodies (including asteroids, comets, and
moons). Papers describing new deployments and planned deployments of
ground, sea, and space-based network systems for active layer and
permafrost monitoring and assessment are welcome.

For further information, please contact:
Reginald Muskett
Email: reginald.muskett [at] gmail.com

GD2.3 - Crustal Heatflow and its Influence on the Earth System

Organizers of Session GD2.3, "Crustal Heatflow and its Influence on the
Earth System," announce a call for abstracts. The session will be
convened at the European Geoscience Union (EGU) General Assembly, 22-27
April 2012 in Vienna, Austria.

From pole to equator to pole, heat from the Earth's interior interacts
with surface processes. Large-scale crustal structure, sub-glacial melt
distribution, palaeoclimate records, oceanic thermal state, oceanic
abyssal circulation and potential field geophysics are just some of the
science areas that can benefit from its study. Surface geothermal heat
flux provides valuable constraints not only on the thermal structure of
the lithosphere and density of radioactive elements in the continental
crust but also on the present-day state of the Earth's mantle. The study
of geothermal heat flux also has socio-economical applications, in
particular the problem of extraction of geothermal energy from the
crust.

Major uncertainties in surface geothermal heat flux exist (ice-covered
regions, deep parts of the ocean) so it is very important to know
geothermal heat flux distribution in these regions (it may control
subglacial melting, basal sliding, or oceanic circulation).
Uncertainties in surface geothermal heat flux distribution, which is
strongly inhomogeneous all over the globe, arise from a large number of
factors: mantle plumes, upwellings and downwellings in the mantle, plate
tectonics, inhomogeneous thickness of the crust including local
topographic effects on the continents in the areas of deep valleys and
high mountains, lateral variations in thermal structure of the crust,
its geological composition, and concentration of radioactive elements in
its continental part. The crust cannot be disconnected from the mantle
because geothermal heat flux is the product of both.

This session invites contributions on all aspects of crustal heatflow
and geothermal gradient - measured, modeled, and applied.

For further information, please contact:
Alan Vaughan
Email: apmva [at] bas.ac.uk

OS2.2/EG3/CL2.12 - Advances in Understanding of the
Multi-Disciplinary Dynamics of the Southern European Seas
(Mediterranean and Black Sea)

Organizers of session OS2.2/EG3/CL2.12, "Advances in Understanding of
the Multi-Disciplinary Dynamics of the Southern European Seas
(Mediterranean and Black Sea)," announce a call for abstracts. The
session will be convened at the European Geoscience Union (EGU) General
Assembly, 22-27 April 2012 in Vienna, Austria.

The session would like to overview recent understanding, by observations
and modeling, of the Southern European Seas general circulation, their
ecosystems, and biogeochemical fluxes. Themes of particular interest are
hydrodynamic interactions at multiple temporal and spatial scales,
response to atmospheric forcing, and process coupling at different
trophic levels of the ecosystem. Issues related to long and short term
circulation, mesoscale variability, biogeochemical flux dynamics, ocean
forecasting, assessment, and understanding of climate trends and the
state of the ecosystem are also within focus of the session.

For further information, please contact:
Samuel Somot
Email: samuel.somot [at] meteo.fr