AGU 101: A guide to the USs biggest geoscience conference
Two giant, week-long, geoscience meetings mark the calendar. In Europe the European Geoscience Union (EGU) General Assembly is around Easter, and in North America just before Christmas is the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting. These two conferences are huge, with 10-20,000 scientists gathering to talk about their work. But how does such a vast science meeting work for the participants? It’s all about “sessions”, posters and talks.
Last week was the AGU Fall meeting and I was one of probably hundreds of UK geoscientists who made the journey to San Francisco. Big meetings create media interest and the BBC sent two science journalists to write stories.
Their output captures part of the range of science at the meeting – but it’s worth noting they highlighted only about 20 stories from the many thousands presented. My favourites were from Jonathan Amos on the new “ coldest place on earth” and the methane seas of Titan, and I loved Rebecca Morell‘s stories on “ missing earthquakes” from the historical record and water spouts on Europa.
Any member of AGU can propose a session subject and title usually by April in the year of the meeting. The organisation committee selects sessions to create a varied programme ( PDF here ) – but given that there are around 1500 sessions over the week you would have to be hard pushed to seriously suggest there is some sort of “gatekeeping” going on with what gets discussed.
When the session lists are published online in early summer, any member of AGU can submit an abstract describing an element of science that fits in a particular session. Then it’s down to the conveners of the session to choose abstracts that they would like to see as a talk, or a poster showcased in AGU’s gargantuan poster room.
What is better, a talk or a poster?
I am not sure I can answer that. I gave a poster and talk last week in different sessions. A talk is usually around 12 minutes and there is only time for one or two questions at most. With a poster, you can stand in front of for hours and talk a great length about particular aspects of your work to as many people who are interested, as you can see from the picture above.
A science poster can be whatever you like so you can tell your scientific story. Here is a really nice example on the representation of trees in climate models.
The AGU website has a virtual meeting section with more than 3,700 posters – including mine. You have to register, which is (I believe) free until January.Image (note)
What happens at an oral session?
At an oral session, several speakers address a subject. One example is ‘400ppm CO2: Communicating Climate Science Effectively’.
The session subject explains the issue they will tackle:
“Despite projections of dangerous future climate changes as a result of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, 400ppm atmospheric CO2 has already been recorded. This session aims to explore what the most impactful methods and places to communicate climate science are, including social media, traditional media, open access publishing etc. Invited speakers will examine how to galvanize action at global, national and local levels. This session will highlight speakers experiences of research-based communication with policy makers and the public.”
The first speaker, science historian Naomi Oreskes, gave a talk called The Scientist as Sentinel, examining how scientists communicate their findings. You can look at her abstract, you can see what people made of it on twitter in this great storify by the session convenor T Davies Barnard – or, if you register, you can even look at the original talk online (reference U52A-01).
There is a lot of excellent content that would of interest to people here. GC43E-01. What Should A Climate Scientist Advocate For? The Intersection Of Expertise And Values In A Politicized World by Gavin Schmidt and NH23B-01. Are Tornadoes Getting Stronger? By James B Elsner are a couple of examples – but you could be kept busy for a long time with the excellent talks available.
And there are also other media such as the Barometer Podcast which ran 5 AGU stories about meteorology and climate.
Inevitably at the end of a tiring week, there is a sense that you have seen some brilliant stuff – while still missing a huge amount of what is going on. But with such a big meeting, how could it be anything else?
My job this week? I am going to catch up on some of what I missed in the online section.