Archive by category | European Geosciences Union

EGU: Seasonal climate forecasts found wanting

It’s a warm and sunny spring day today in Vienna can you guess then whether the coming summer will be colder or warmer than usual? Well, if you think that you hardly have more – though certainly not less – than a 50% chance of getting it right you’re, uhm, right. But guess what: Supercomputer-powered seasonal climate forecasts don’t do much better.  Read more

EGU: A clash of cultures?

Economists? Are cold-hearted, says the dictionary of accepted ideas. Now, Richard Tol, an environmental and energy economist at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin is also a bit of an enfant terrible in his guild. So I, for one, was not surprised that his whistle stop at the EGU sent some palpable shockwaves through the large and well-filled lecture hall D here.  Read more

EGU: Climate hypocrisy?

Some pop artists, including Madonna, have been accused of hypocrisy because their life styles are not exactly compatible with the climate-awareness they are going to raise at the Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium in London on July 7. Can the same be said about scientists who fly around the world to attend the EGU?  Read more

EGU: The great parade

I am a bit at loss now, standing here between the tall concrete buldings that surround the Vienna Conference Center in the Kaisermühlen district of the Austrian capital. Kaisermühlen-Blues, it occurrs to me, was the name of a succesful 1990s TV series that ran on Austrian television.  Read more