The highly interdisciplinary nature of biogeosciences provides a broad platform to highlight recent advances in genetic, molecular, isotopic, landscape, global, and planetary venues. Thematic sessions will call attention to new research in terrestrial ecology, emphasizing the carbon cycle and its interactions with nutrient cycling and climate as well as frontiers in isotopic biogeochemistry and the integration of molecular techniques and genomics. Special emphasis will be put on understanding life in our Earth's system and extrapolating to extraterrestrial planetary bodies for clues to the origin, distribution, and diversity of life.
Analysis of climate and its variation through time is a theme which draws together many branches of the geophysical sciences and biogeosciences. Climate integrates the effects of chemical, biological, and physical processes in the Earth's hydrosphere, cryosphere, atmosphere, and land surface. Sessions at the meeting report on studies of past and present climate effects on sea level, water resources, snow and ice, ocean processes, and biological resources. Models of the processes responsible for climate are tested against observations and, when successful, may be considered as tools for the scientific assessment of public policy options.
Rapid advances in computational technology of the last few decades make possible increasingly realistic mathematical simulation of geophysical phenomena. Strong inhomogeneity on many spatial scales, the interaction of processes with a wide range of characteristic times, still insufficient knowledge of constitutive relations, and the overall complexity of the systems provide continuing challenges for this work. Nonetheless, computational science provides one of the most important means for geophysicists to test their models of process.
Advances in the technology for data collection have led to an exponential growth in the quantity of data potentially available to bring to bear in answering geophysical questions. A key challenge facing researchers across the geophysical sciences is how, in the most effective way, to manage and manipulate these volumes of data to facilitate inquiry leading to the answers. Long gone are the days when a simple graph prepared from a few columns of figures in a laboratory notebook was all that was required for data analysis. Visualization is a key strategy for enhancing the human senses and taking advantage of the sophistication and volume of output from modern data collection equipment, and is also the subject of several sessions.
Observations of the deep interior of our own planet Earth are perhaps more difficult than observations of distant galaxies. Nonetheless, we are developing an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the physical processes operating in this remote and extreme environment. Observations, necessarily made at the surface of the Earth or from space, are based on the influence of the interior on the passage of seismic waves, the character and evolution of the geomagnetic field, the gravity field of the planet, and clues from geology and planetology. Computational techniques provide powerful methods for testing models of processes. Emerging results reflect new insights into the processes leading to the origin of the geomagnetic field, dynamic processes within the core and mantle, particularly convection, and the evolution of the deep interior of our planet.
The disciplines represented in the AGU provide the knowledge and data required if we hope to measure and manage the quality of our environment, including air, water, biota, and land surface. Advances in methods and techniques allow new insights and understanding, as well as suggest novel management strategies. Sound public policies with the aim of maintaining or improving environmental quality are based on an understanding of the natural and other systems involved that is as complete as possible, thereby avoiding undesired and unintended consequences.
While mankind may present a threat to certain aspects of our natural environment, so too does the natural environment threaten mankind and its built environment. These threats can have relatively sudden onsets, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tornados, hurricanes, landslides, glacial surges, and strong storms, or they can occur more gradually such as droughts and sea level changes. Sessions are focused on understanding the phenomena and processes underlying these hazards and providing a scientific basis for mitigating the hazards where possible.
Plate tectonics provides a strong and useful framework for analyzing and understanding a wide variety of geologic and tectonic phenomena. Many of these processes are most active along the boundaries between the plates, including active faulting, earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain building, and subduction.
Remotely sensed data are used among all sections of the AGU. While the applications differ, the physical principles remain constant, and thus this theme links sessions using remote sensing to foster greater insight among the users of these technologies.
The interaction of the Earth's atmosphere with both land and sea at the surface of the planet is a key element in such widely ranging phenomena as the transoceanic transmission of disease via dust and the change in climate due to the tectonic deformation of the continents. Particularly strong interactions are found in the effect of topography on present-day climate and in the influence of present and past weather patterns on the evolution of landforms.