EGU General Assembly 2022 - Vienna, Austria

"IMPORTANT UPDATE: Due to the changing regulations on events in Austria and concerns over high infection rates in Europe, EGU is moving the dates of the annual General Assembly in 2022 to 23–27 May. All presentations will be short orals that can be delivered and viewed both online or in-person. Late abstracts can be submitted until 26 January 2022 at 13:00 CET. To move your abstract to a new session please email show mail address by 26 January 2022 at 13:00 CET. For more information and to seek assistance with regards to this change please visit this page visit this page. Please read the full EGU news announcement."

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is the leading organisation for Earth, planetary and space science research in Europe. With our partner organisations worldwide, we foster fundamental geoscience research, alongside applied research that addresses key societal and environmental challenges. Our vision is to realise a sustainable and just future for humanity and for the planet.

It is a non-profit international union of scientists with about 18,000 members from all over the world. Membership is open to individuals who are professionally engaged in or associated with geosciences and planetary and space sciences and related studies, including students and retired seniors.

The EGU publishes a number of diverse scientific journals, which use an innovative open access format, and organises topical meetings, and education and outreach activities. It also honours scientists with a number of awards and medals. The annual EGU General Assembly is the largest and most prominent European geosciences event, attracting over 18,000 scientists from all over the world in the year 2021. The meeting’s sessions cover a wide range of topics, including volcanology, planetary exploration, the Earth’s internal structure and atmosphere, climate, as well as energy and resources.

The EGU was established in September 2002 as a merger of the European Geophysical Society (EGS) and the European Union of Geosciences (EUG), and has headquarters in Munich, Germany.

Venue

Austria Center Vienna

Logistics

The General Assembly 2022 of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) is held at the Austria Center Vienna (ACV) in Vienna, Austria, from 23-27 May 2022. The assembly is open to scientists of all nations. The entire congress centre is fully accessible by wheelchairs.

Late abstracts can be submitted until 26 January 2022 at 13:00 CET. To move your abstract to a new session please email show mail address by 26 January 2022 at 13:00 CET. For more information and to seek assistance with regards to this change please visit this page. Please read the full EGU news announcement.

Description

The EGU General Assembly 2022 brings together geoscientists from all over the world to one meeting covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary, and space sciences. The EGU aims to provide a forum where scientists, especially early career scientists, can present their work and discuss their ideas with experts in all fields of geoscience.

The last two General Assemblies, Sharing Geoscience Online in 2020 and vEGU21: Gather Online, were organized as virtual meetings due to the Covid-related restrictions. In 2022, the EGU aims to provide again an on-site experience for those attending physically, while at the same time developing new concepts to include virtual attendees as much as possible. The EGU General Assembly 2022 (EGU22) will be a conference with a virtual component where everybody is welcome, in person or online! The structure of the conference will be flexible, giving us the opportunity to easily adapt to the uncertain global context. Further information is given on the Meeting Format page.

Deadlines & milestones (selection)

Abstract submission: 12 January 2022 - Late abstracts can be submitted until 26 January 2022 at 13:00 CET

Registration

For General information, registration, and submission of abstracts, please email: show mail address

Further information

For more information, a full overview of deadlines and a preliminary overview of the program, visit the website.

Abstracts

The deadline for abstract submission is 12 January 2022, 13:00 CET.: https://egu22.eu/abstracts_and_programme/how_to_submit_an_abstract.html

Late abstracts can be submitted until 26 January 2022 at 13:00 CET

Travel support

The deadline for EGU Roland Schlich travel support and virtual registration fee waivers is is 1 December 2021: https://egu22.eu/about/roland_schlich_travel_support_and_virtual_registration_fee_waivers.html

Further information

Go to the official website: https://www.egu22.eu/

General contact: show mail address

PAGES Sessions

2k Network

CL1.2.6 - Studying the climate of the last two millennia
Co-organized by OS1
Convener: Steven Phipps | Co-conveners: Hugo Beltrami, Georgy Falster, Nikita Kaushal, Andrea Seim
Abstract submission

This session aims to place recently observed climate change in a long-term perspective by highlighting the importance of paleoclimate research spanning the past 2000 years. We invite presentations that provide insights into past climate variability, over decadal to millennial timescales, from different paleoclimate archives (ice cores, marine sediments, terrestrial records, historical archives and more). In particular, we are focussing on quantitative temperature and hydroclimate reconstructions, and reconstructions of large-scale modes of climate variability from local to global scales. This session also encourages presentations on the attribution of past climate variability to external drivers or internal climate processes, data syntheses, model-data comparison exercises, proxy system modelling, and novel approaches to producing multi-proxy climate field reconstructions.

CL1.2.5 - The state-of-the-art in ice coring sciences
Convener: Michael Dyonisius | Co-conveners: Michael Döring, Julien WesthoffECS, Amy King, Anja Eichler
Abstract submission

The half-century since the first deep ice core drilling at Camp Century, Greenland, has seen extensive innovation in methods of ice sample extraction, analysis and interpretation. Ice core sciences include isotopic diffusion analysis, multiple-isotope systematics, trace gases and their isotopic compositions, ice structure and physical properties, high-resolution analysis of major and trace impurities, and studies of DNA and radiochemistry in ice, among many others. Many climate and geochemical proxies have been identified from ice cores, with ongoing effort to extend their application and refine their interpretation. Great challenges remain in the field of ice coring sciences, including the identification of suitable sites for recovery of million-year-old ice; spatial integration of climate records (e.g. PAGES groups Antarctica2k and Iso2k); and deeper understanding of glaciological phenomena such as streaming flow, folding of layers and basal ice properties. This session welcomes all contributions reporting the state-of-the-art in ice coring sciences, including drilling and processing, dating, analytical techniques, results and interpretations of ice core records from polar ice sheets and mid- and low-latitude glaciers, remote and autonomous methods of surveying ice stratigraphy, and related modelling research.

Carbon in Peat on Earth through Time (C-PEAT)

BG3.13 - Peatlands from Pole to Pole
Co-organized by SSS5
Convener: Julien Arsenault | Co-conveners: Jorge Hoyos-Santillan, Angela Gallego-Sala, Claudio Zaccone
Abstract submission

Peatlands represent an important component of the global carbon (C) cycle, acting simultaneously as C sinks (for CO2) and sources (for CH4). While the central characteristic of peatlands is an imbalance between organic matter production and decomposition leading to peat accumulation, the pathways to peat accumulation differ and depend on the geographical settings in which peatlands develop. Climate, topography, vegetation, hydrology, peat composition, and microbial communities, among others, exert control on peat accumulation processes. Understanding the role of such variables on C and other chemical elements dynamics in peatlands is of major interest for their conservation and restoration in the context of global climate change. The goal of this session is to bring together peatland scientists that will emphasize the commonalities and differences among peatlands located in different geographical settings. Contributions comparing processes in peatlands located in different regions are encouraged, but site-specific studies are also of interest.

BG3.10 - Old Peat, New Voices: Insights into Global Peatland Research from Early Career Researchers
Convener: Liam Heffernan | Co-conveners: Scott Davidson, Martina Schlaipfer, Nicole Sanderson, Iuliia Burdun
Abstract submission

Global, collaborative research has the potential to address substantial knowledge gaps in peatland science. The integration of insights across individual study sites and disciplines, including those from biogeosciences, hydrology, and global environmental change, can help resolve key unknowns regarding the response of global peatlands to projected disturbances. We are more technologically capable than ever to conduct this much needed collaborative work, and today’s early career researchers will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of peatland science. The goal of this session is to bring together early career peatland researchers (within 7 years post PhD) across scientific fields to emphasize the commonalities and differences in our findings across geographical regions and peatland type. We encourage interdisciplinary submissions comparing processes and spatio-temporal scales in peatlands worldwide and/or studies with management implications, but also welcome localized and methodologically specific studies which have broader implications.

Climate Variability Across Scales (CVAS)

NP3.2 - Climate Variability Across Scales and Climate States
Co-organized by CL4, co-sponsored by PAGES
Convener: Raphael Hébert | Co-conveners: Heather AndresECS, Shaun Lovejoy, Kira Rehfeld
Abstract submission

The Earth's climate is highly variable on all spatial and temporal scales, and this has direct consequences for society. For example, changes in variability (spatial or temporal) can impact the recurrence frequency of extreme events. Yet it is unclear if a warmer future is one with more or with less climate variability, and at which scales, as a multitude of feedbacks is involved and the instrumental record is short.
We welcome contributions that improve quantification, understanding, and prediction of climate variability in the Earth system across space and timescales through case studies, idealized or realistic modeling, synthesis, and model-data comparison studies that provide insights into past, present and future climate variability on local to global, and synoptic to orbital timescales.

The session is multidisciplinary and brings together people working in the geosciences, atmospheric science, oceanography, glaciology, paleoclimatology and environmental physics, to examine the complementarity of ideas and approaches. Members of the PAGES working group on Climate Variability Across Scales (CVAS) and others are welcome.

This session aims to provide a forum to present work on:

1- the characterization of climate dynamics using a variety of techniques (e.g. scaling and multifractal techniques and models, recurrence plots, or variance analyses) to study its variability including periodicities, noise levels, or intermittency);
2- the relationship between changes in the mean state (e.g. glacial to interglacial or preindustrial to present to future), and higher-order moments of relevant climate variables, to changes in extreme-event occurrence and the predictability of climate;
3- the role of ocean, atmosphere, cryosphere, and land-surface processes in fostering long-term climate variability through linear – or nonlinear – feedbacks and mechanisms;
4- the attribution of climate variability to internal dynamics, or the response to natural (volcanic or solar) and anthropogenic forcing;
5- the interaction of external forcing (e.g. orbital forcing) and internal variability such as mechanisms for synchronization and pacing of glacial cycles;
6- the characterization of probabilities of extremes, including linkage between slow climate variability and extreme event recurrence.

Floods

GM10.2 - From hydro-climatology to hydro-geomorphology under extreme climatic events
Co-organized by CL3.1/HS13/NH1
Conveners: Yuval Shmilovitz | Co-conveners: Francesco Marra, Efrat Morin, Yehouda Enzel, Roberta Paranunzio
Abstract submission

Participants will discuss extreme climatic events and their respective transformation into hydrological and erosion responses such as floods, debris flows and hillslopes failures. This interdisciplinary event will focus on the short- and long-term imprints of extreme events on landscape evolution. We especially encourage new modeling approaches that explicitly investigated the impact of extreme events.

PALeo constraints on SEA level rise (PALSEA)

CL5.2.3 - Cenozoic Sea-level Indicators and Ice Sheet Constraints to Global Sea-level Change | Virtual PICO
Convener: Deirdre Ryan | Co-conveners: April Dalton, Alessio Rovere, Roger Creel
Abstract submission

Directly observable relative sea-level (RSL) indicators (e.g. shore platforms, coral reef terraces, beach deposits, etc.) are used to constrain paleo ice sheet simulations, improve GIA models, and refine future projections of ice-sheet and sea-level responses. Paleo sea-level indicators not only constrain the record of sea-level fluctuations as related to ice sheet growth and decay, but also inform paleoclimatic change, the physical response to glacial- and hydro- isostatic adjustments and other regional earth surface processes, as well as provide process analogs to future change. For example, early and mid- Pliocene records offer analogs for atmospheric CO₂ levels exceeding 400 ppmv. Recent advances in sea-level studies have called for increased spatiotemporal density of RSL indicators, including submerged and near-field localities, analyzed using standardized definitions and methods. Improvements in the development, interpretation, and integration of these indicators are critical for reducing uncertainties in paleo sea-level estimates and ice sheet extents and for producing projections that accurately attribute future sea-level changes to ice sheets, ocean thermal expansion, and other global and regional processes.

This session welcomes contributions to the global record of Cenozoic sea-level indicators and associated proxies from a variety of coastal environments (not limited to peak interglacial periods), and constraints to paleo ice sheets, as well as new approaches to constraining future projections using sea-level indicators. Open to all methods of analysis, this session falls within the purview of PALSEA (PALeo constraints on SEA level rise), a PAGES-INQUA Working Groups, and the ERC-funded project WARMCOASTS.

Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis and AnaLysis (SISAL)

CL1.2.3 - Speleothem and Continental Carbonate Archives of Modern and Palaeoenvironmental Change
Co-organized by SSP3, co-sponsored by PAGES
Convener: Sophie WarkenECS | Co-conveners: Andrea ColumbuECS, Nikita KaushalECS, Andrea Borsato, Franziska Lechleitner
Abstract submission

Speleothems and other continental carbonates (e.g. travertines, pedogenic, lacustrine, subglacial and cryogenic carbonates) are important terrestrial archives, which can provide precisely dated, high-resolution records of past environmental and climate changes. The field of carbonate-based paleoclimatology has seen (1) continuously improving analytical capacity, supporting the compilation of detailed records of climate variability integrating established as well as novel and innovative techniques. (2) Long-term environmental monitoring campaigns facilitating the interpretation of high-resolution proxy time series from carbonate archives. (3) The continuous development of proxy-system models that can help understand the measured proxies, by describing processes such as water infiltration, carbonate dissolution, precipitation and diagenesis. (4) The development of proxy databases such as SISAL (Speleothem Isotope Synthesis and AnaLysis) which enable regional-to-global scale analysis of the relationship between the proxy and the environmental parameter using a variety of large data analysis and data-model comparison techniques.

Applied together, advancements in these cornerstones pave the way towards developing highly reliable and quantitative terrestrial climate reconstructions. This session aims to bring together integrated and interdisciplinary studies in order to better understand the precipitation environment of continental carbonates and the incorporation of climate-sensitive proxies at various time scales. We especially invite contributions that show progress in one of the four outlined domains, and welcome speleothem and carbonate-based modern and paleoenvironmental studies, including new records of past climatic changes. In addition, research contributing to current international co-ordinated activities, such as the PAGES working group on Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis and AnaLysis (SISAL) and others are welcome.

PAGES-PMIP Working Group on Quaternary Interglacials (QUIGS)

CL1.1.3 - Interglacial diversity
Convener: Pepijn Bakker | Co-conveners: Steve Barker, Qiuzhen Yin, Sarah Shackleton
Abstract submission

Reconstructing the climates of past interglacials could improve our understanding and projections of future climate change. Notable examples of past interglacial variability include high sea levels during MIS11c, peak CO2 and CH4 levels during MIS9e and high temperatures over Antarctica during MIS5e. Interestingly, it appears that there is not a single interglacial in the last 800,000 years that experienced the warmest temperatures, the highest sea levels and the most elevated greenhouse-gas concentrations. Moreover, there are substantial differences between interglacials in ocean circulation, sea ice, vegetation, carbon cycle and regional climate. Indeed, when comparing various past interglacials, the variability between them is striking; hence the term interglacial diversity (Tzedakis et al., Nature, 2009). If we want to understand interglacial climate change, we need to understand what causes such diversity.

We therefore invite submissions that explore the characteristics of interglacial diversity. Moreover, we seek to understand the potential drivers of interglacial diversity, for instance insolation changes, the impact of the preceding deglaciation or modes of variability internal to the Earth system. We are particularly interested in new proxy records, compilations of existing data from a range of archives and new theoretical concepts or model experiments that can help to explain the observations. This session will bring together proxy-based, theoretical and/or modelling studies and targets the broader Earth system including changes in climate, ice sheets and the carbon cycle.

International Paleofire Network (IPN)

CL5.2.1 - Applications and advances in proxies for palaeofire reconstructions
Convener: Benjamin Keenan | Co-conveners: Richard S. Vachula, Elisabeth Dietze
Abstract submission

Recent wildland fires and their anticipated response to anthropogenic climate change have created a need to better understand the controls on fire, and to establish baselines for natural versus anthropogenic burning. Fire regime dynamics today can be understood through the lens of records of fire in the past such as charcoal, tree-ring analyses and fire biomarkers. Interpretation of palaeofire proxies requires application in different areas and settings, as well as calibration in the modern day. We invite abstracts that contribute to the understanding of fire regimes in the past as well as how fire regime changes relate to changing anthropogenic land use such as land clearance for agriculture. We also welcome combined records of palaeofire with other fossil records of vegetation, and climate from proxies such as pollen and stable isotope as well as applications of palaeofire records informing ecosystem management plans in the modern day.

Selected relevant sessions

CL5.1.4 - Geochronological tools for environmental reconstructions
Co-organized by GM2/SSP1, co-sponsored by PAGES
Convener: Kathleen Wendt | Co-conveners: Arne RamischECS, Irka Hajdas, Andreas Lang
Abstract submission

The Quaternary Period (last 2.6 million years) is characterized by frequent and abrupt climate swings that were accompanied by rapid environmental change. Studying these changes requires accurate and precise dating methods that can be effectively applied to environmental archives. A range of different methods or a combination of various dating techniques can be used, depending on the archive, time range, and research question. Varve counting and dendrochronology allow for the construction of high-resolution chronologies, whereas radiometric methods (radiocarbon, cosmogenic in-situ, U-Th) and luminescence dating provide independent anchors for chronologies that span over longer timescales. We particularly welcome contributions that aim to (1) reduce, quantify and express dating uncertainties in any dating method, including high-resolution radiocarbon approaches; (2) use established geochronological methods to answer new questions; (3) use new methods to address longstanding issues, or; (4) combine different chronometric techniques for improved results, including the analysis of chronological datasets with novel methods, e.g. Bayesian age-depth modeling. Applications may aim to understand long-term landscape evolution, quantify rates of geomorphological processes, or provide chronologies for records of climate change.

CL4.4 - Winter climate variability in the Northern Hemisphere across multiple time-scales
Convener: Aurel Perşoiu | Co-conveners: Monica Ionita-Scholz, Sebastian F.M. Breitenbach, Paul Breeze, Gabriella Koltai
Abstract submission

The dynamics of the Earth’s climate shows seasonally distinct and different patterns. These patterns are more evident in the mid-to-high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, where the alternation of oceans and land masses affects both the short and long-term (re)distribution of energy, resulting in complex weather and climate patterns on time scales ranging from days to millennia. Different factors, processes, and mechanisms are prominent during summers and winters. Consequently, the weather and climate patterns differ between both seasons, so that the dynamics of a summer climate are markedly different to winter ones. The most recent examples are the February 2021 North American cold spell, and, on a millennial time scale, the markedly different summer and winter climate of the early-to-mid Holocene.
With the winter months being the most active from a dynamic point of view and the perturbations of the large-scale atmospheric circulation can reach very high amplitudes, this session will focus on the dynamics of winter climate variability and trends in the Northern Hemisphere. We invite contributions that discuss winter climate and weather patterns on time scales ranging from days to millennia during the Late Quaternary, with focus on the Last Glacial Maximum-present time-frame.

The aim is to build a narrative linking short-term weather variability to long-term climate change, by discussing factors, forcing, processes and mechanisms. The main topics we wish to address are: 1) which are the large-scale/regional processes governing present-day winter climate variability in the Northern Hemisphere? 2) how diverse were the spatial dynamics of winter climate during the Holocene? 3) what were the temporal dynamics of winter climate variability during the post-LGM period; 4) what was the societal response to changing winter climate conditions during the Holocene.

CL5.2.2 - Reconstructions of Holocene sea-level changes from high to low latitudes | Virtual PICO
Convener: Geoff Richards | Co-conveners: Timothy Shaw, Jennifer Walker, Alisa Baranskaya
Abstract submission

Risks associated with rising sea levels pose a significant threat to population densities, economies, infrastructure, and ecosystem services that will likely be exacerbated throughout the twenty-first century. Regional and local scale changes in sea level, however, can be greater than 20% from the global mean for approximately one-third of the world’s coastlines. Spatial and temporal variability of Holocene sea level changes are therefore crucial to constrain sea-level driving processes that vary across near-, intermediate-, and far-field locations and important to understand in the context of accurate future projections and uncertainty.

We invite submissions from the sea level community to present their research of past sea levels across a range of proxies and environments from high to low latitudes. Studies that demonstrate the use of sedimentological, biological and archeological indicators including sea-level reconstructions, field and laboratory methods, chronological techniques and advancements, and the use of statistical models in analyzing sea-level datasets are all encouraged.

SSP3.1 - Limnogeology - reading the geological record of lakes
Convener: Hendrik Vogel | Co-conveners: Charline Giguet-Covex, Marta Marchegiano, Jasper Moernaut
Displays | Attendance Tues, 05 May, 08:30–10:15 (CEST)

During the past decades numerous sediment records have become available from lakes and paleolakes through shallow and (ICDP) deep drilling. These records have proven to be valuable archives of past climate and environmental change, human activities as well as tectonic and volcanic activity. We invite contributions emphasizing quantitative and spatial assessments of rates of change, causes and consequences of long- and short-term climate variability, impact, magnitude, and frequency of tectonic and volcanic activity as deduced from sedimentological, geochemical, biological, and chronological tools.

With the winter months being the most active from a dynamic point of view and the perturbations of the large-scale atmospheric circulation can reach very high amplitudes, this session will focus on the dynamics of winter climate variability and trends in the Northern Hemisphere. We invite contributions that discuss winter climate and weather patterns on time scales ranging from days to millennia during the Late Quaternary, with focus on the Last Glacial Maximum-present time-frame.

NP2.4 Tipping Points in the Earth System
Co-organized by CL4/CR7/OS1
Convener: Niklas Boers | Co-conveners: Peter Ditlevsen, Anna von der Heydt, Timothy Lenton , Marisa Montoya
Abstract submission

Several subsystems of the Earth system have been suggested to react abruptly at critical levels of anthropogenic forcing. Well-known examples of such Tipping Elements include the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the polar ice sheets and sea ice, tropical and boreal forests, as well as the Asian monsoon systems. Interactions between the different Tipping Elements may either have stabilizing or destabilizing effects on the other subsystems, potentially leading to cascades of abrupt transitions. The critical forcing levels at which abrupt transitions occur have recently been associated with Tipping Points.

It is paramount to determine the critical forcing levels (and the associated uncertainties) beyond which the systems in question will abruptly change their state, with potentially devastating climatic, ecological, and societal impacts. For this purpose, we need to substantially enhance our understanding of the dynamics of the Tipping Elements and their interactions, on the basis of paleoclimatic evidence, present-day observations, and models spanning the entire hierarchy of complexity. Moreover, to be able to mitigate - or prepare for - potential future transitions, early warning signals have to be identified and monitored in both observations and models.

This multidisciplinary session invites contributions that address Tipping Points in the Earth system from the different perspectives of all relevant disciplines, including

- the mathematical theory of abrupt transitions in (random) dynamical systems,
- paleoclimatic studies of past abrupt transitions,
- data-driven and process-based modelling of past and future transitions,
- early-warning signals
- the implications of abrupt transitions for Climate sensitivity and response,
- ecological and societal impacts, as well as
- decision theory in the presence of uncertain Tipping Point estimates