My college Markus, looking small next to the big things he had to say at one of the hydrology sessions. Photo by Elin Högström.The permafrost sessions started on Monday morning. The oral part focused on: permafrost and associated natural systems; interactions with climate; impacts of changes on natural and human systems; and the measurement, understanding, modeling, and parametrization of corresponding processes.

 

From PAGE21 Annett Bartsch presented the "DUE PERMAFROST: A Circumpolar Remote Sensing Service for Permafrost - Evaluation Case Studies and Intercomparison with Regional Climate Model Simulations", and Hugues Lantuit presented the "Temporal and spatial dynamics of mega retrogressive thaw slumps revealed by 2D/3D geophysics and mechanical implications for the pace of coastal thermokarst on Herschel Island, western Canadian Arctic". The afternoon continued with permafrost related poster sessions, including my poster.

 

This first day was a bit tricky for us when it comes to timing, since the Austrian Polar Research Institute (APRI) happened to have their opening simultaneously. It meant a bit of going back and forth in full speed for my part. But all went pretty fine.

 

The EGU week then continued with WP meetings at TU Wien: WP5 on tuesday, WP8 on Wednesday. Furthermore, talks were given during the EGU by eg. Jean-Pierre Lanckmann on about data management and by Ko van Huissteden on the topic thermokarst lakes from the Last Glacial and Early Holocene.

 

In case you are interested in reading more about specific topics you should check out this link to the EGU GeoLog, and by the way, this is the second place winner of the photo competition for this year. Not bad, is it?

 

Hey, this is not at an EGU session... That's right, it's the Wien Staatsoper, where we had the great pleasure to go one evening. Photo by Elin Högström.Apart from the work days, as always when there are visitors in town, it was an occasion for me to play the tourist and spend some extra evening energy on culture as well as sports, including amazing music and climbing.

 

Lastly I want to say thanks to everyone that came to Vienna for the EGU, because it really felt as if it was you who brought the spring! And it is still here. With 20 degrees and sun (which, for a Swedish person like myself, is actually rather summer than spring...).

 

Elin