Press

10:00 a.m. Press Conference: The Uncertain Future of the Great Lakes
AGU

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The Great Lakes hold 21% of the world’s freshwater, host numerous ecosystems, and are home to more than 30 million people. Climate change threatens to raise lake levels, increase erosion, and raise risks of flooding. Research presented in this press conference showcases the latest developments in predicting water levels and coastal change, as well as the binational approach necessary to managing this invaluable resource.

Speakers:

• Lauren Fry (in person) – NOAA, Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab
• Alexander Vandeweghe (in person) – University of Michigan
• Yi Hong (in person) – University of Michigan
• Riley Balikian (in person) – Illinois Geological Survey

Contact: Rebecca Dzombak, AGU [email protected]

Related talks and posters:

• Advancements in hydroclimate research in support of monitoring and binational adaptive management of the Laurentian Great Lakes (Invited), Presented by Lauren Fry
• Statistically representing the water balance of large lakes: a framework for forecasting the impacts of climate change on water levels, presented by Alexander Vandeweghe
• Assessing differential impacts of storm-surge flooding on coastal communities of the Great Lakes, presented by Yi Hong
• Shoreline classification and erosion characterization on the Illinois coast of Lake Michigan using synthetic aperture radar, presented by Riley Balikian

1:00 p.m. Press Conference: Hunga Volcano One Year Later, Still More Explosive Research
AGU

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The explosive underwater eruption of Hunga Volcano in January 2022 captured the attention of the world and the scientific community, setting records for the height of the gas plume and the volume of vaporized water. Waves battered the islands of Tonga and rang through the ionosphere. In this press conference, scientists studying diverse aspects of the eruption will report on their latest findings, including storms generated by the eruption near ground and at the edge of space, and future risks.

Speakers:

• Yingcai Zheng (in-person) – University of Houston
• Chris Vagasky (in-person) – Vaisala Inc.
• Sharon Walker – Pacific Marine Environmental Lab, NOAA
• Larry Paxton (in-person) – Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab
• Claire Gasque – University of California, Berkeley

Contact: Larry Ohanlon, [email protected]

AGU related talks and posters:                                                          

• Atmospheric-ionosphere response to the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption 1, online poster session
• Atmosphere-ionosphere response to the 2022 Hunga Tonag-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption 3, oral session
• Dynamics and atmospheric impacts of the January 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption 2, poster
• Dynamics and atmospheric impacts of the January 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption 3, oral

2:00 p.m. Briefing: Space Helicopters! Aircraft for Other Worlds

NASA Jet Propulsion Lab

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NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter began the era of powered-controlled flight on Mars back on April 19, 2021. Originally envisioned as a technology demonstrator that could fly up to five flights at the Red Planet, the diminutive rotorcraft is gearing up for Flight 36 as it not only continues its flight test mission, but supports the explorations of the Perseverance Mars rover. What is the status of Ingenuity, and its direct descendent, the Sample Retrieval Helicopters that are part of the agency’s Mars Sample Return Campaign? The briefing will also cover the latest with NASA’s Dragonfly quadcopter, which is destined to fly at the Saturnian moon Titan. 

Speakers (all in-person):

• Håvard Grip – JPL, NASA
• Teddy Tzanetos  – JPL, NASA
• Elizabeth Turtle – Applied Physics Lab, NASA

Contact: DC Agle, JPL Media Relations Specialist, [email protected]

3:00 p.m. Roundtable: Arrival Preview: NASA's First Asteroid Sample Return Mission
NASA Goddard

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NASA's first asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx, is on track to deliver a sizable sample of asteroid Bennu to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023, landing under a parachute at the U.S. Air Force’s Utah Testing and Training Range in the Great Salt Lake Desert, completing a seven-year mission.  However, the mission has much to do before the sample arrives.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx – formally the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security - Regolith Explorer – still needs to make a few precise space maneuvers to meet Earth at the right speed, time, and position to drop off its package.

On the ground, crews prepare to receive the sample.  They practice the retrieval procedure.  Scientists rehearse to handle the pristine asteroid sample and test the mission’s 12 Driving Hypotheses. NASA's Johnson Space Center has built a new facility to store, prepare, and catalogue the sample, portions of which will be made available to researchers worldwide beginning in 2024.

At this roundtable, mission leads will outline what needs to happen for a safe delivery of the asteroid sample and why this sample is worth the effort of hundreds of people working on this mission. Plus, we will discuss how recent scientific results on Bennu compared to some of the findings of NASA's DART mission and JAXA’s Hayabusa2 mission.

Speakers

• Michael Moreau (in person) –Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA
• Nicole Lunning (virtual) – Johnson Space Center, NASA
• Jason Dworkin (in person) – Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA
• Sandra Freund (virtual) – Lockheed Martin Space Systems
• Conel Alexander (in person) – Carnegie Science Institute

Contact: Rani Gran, Goddard Media Relations Specialist, [email protected]

Related talks and posters:

• Carbon across the solar system, session
• NASA Hyperwall Presentation in the AGU Exhibits Hall (Tuesday December 13,  11:10 – 11:25am)

• Automating workflows for astro-materials analytical data: development of standards for OSIRIS-REx Sample Return Data, presented by Stephen Richard, U.S. Geoscience Information Network
• Simulator for Formation of Rubble-Pile Asteroids Using Open-Source Physics Simulation., presented by Tatsunori Tsunoda, University of Aizu
• Boulders on Bennu: Exploring the Structure of Low Thermal Inertia Rock through Thermal Modeling, presented by Catherine Elder, JPL, NASA
• Supernova-Derived Potassium-40 Anomalies in Primitive Meteorites (Invited), presented by Xike (Nicole) Nie, Carnegie Institution for Science

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Now in its 17th year, the 2022 NOAA Arctic Report Card catalogs the disruptive impacts of climate change on a vital region that is warming more than twice as quickly as other regions. In addition to reporting on this year's air temperature, sea ice extent, ocean temperature, plankton blooms, snow cover, tundra/ forest greenness, and Greenland ice sheet, the report card will include new chapters on emerging issues such as precipitation, Arctic shipping trends, bird populations and the safety, health and economic impacts of climate change for Indigenous and other Arctic communities. With more than 120 authors from 11 countries, the NOAA Arctic Report Card, is an internationally recognized primary source of information for media, students, scientists, Arctic communities and other decision-makers. 

Speakers (all in person)

• Rick Spinrad, NOAA Administrator.
• Matthew Druckenmiller, National Snow & Ice Data Center, lead editor of the Arctic Report Card
• Karen Frey, Clark University, author of report on primary productivity or Arctic plankton blooms
• John Walsh, International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, lead author of new chapter on precipitation
• Jackie Qataliña Schaeffer, Director of Climate Initiatives for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, co-author of the 2022 Arctic Report Card essay on how rapid environmental Arctic change is affecting people.

Contact: Monica Allen, Director of Public Affairs for NOAA Research, [email protected]

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Experts available for questions about Mauna Loa’s ongoing eruption on the Big Island, Hawaii.

Speakers:

• Drew Downs, Volcanologist, USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory
• Jon Major, USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory
• Tina Neal, Director, USGS Volcano Science Center

Contact: Steven Sobieszczyk (Moderator), Media Lead – USGS Natural Hazards, [email protected]

2:00 p.m. Roundtable: World's Biggest Solar Telescope to Examine Upcoming Eclipses, Help Improve Space Weather Prediction and More
National Science Foundation

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Understanding the fundamental physics behind solar storms and other solar phenomena is a key focus area for the National Science Foundation's Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, the world's largest solar telescope which completed construction in 2021. The telescope is the latest and most powerful research facility to join an arsenal of ground, aircraft-based and space-based instruments that study our sun. Those instruments will be coordinated to observe the sun, including during the 2023 and 2024 solar eclipses when scientists will be able to examine previously unseen details about magnetic structures that connect the sun's surface and corona. Join experts from NSF, NOAA and NASA to learn about what researchers may discover about our sun.

Speakers:

• Carrie Black (in person), Program Director – National Solar Observatory and the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, NSF
• Elsayed Talaat (in person), Director, Office of Projects, Planning, and Analysis, National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, NOAA
• Nicholeen Viall (virtual), Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA

Contact: Jason Stoughton, Staff Associate for Strategic Communications, NSF, [email protected]

AGU / Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)

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Extreme rain in Pakistan flooded a third of the country in August 2022, killing over 1,500 people, putting millions out of their homes and inflicting widespread food insecurity. In the same month, Typhoon Hinnamnor brought 400 millimeters of rain to Seoul in two days, causing the worst flooding in 80 years.

Researchers will discuss the causes behind these record events, the contribution of climate change and implications for a future of more extreme storms.

Speakers

• Ruby Leung, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
• Nanditha J.S., Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinaga
• Seongjin Noh, Kumoh National Institute of Technology

Contact: Liza Lester, AGU [email protected]; Brendan Bane, Media Relations Advisor, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, [email protected]

Related talks and posters:

• The Pakistan Flood of August 2022: Causes and Implications – presented by Nanditha J.S.
• Two extreme flood events by Typhoon Hinnamnor and torrential rainfall in South Korea in 2022 and research innovation to improve resilience for flooding in urban – presented by Seongjin Noh
• Observed and projected changes of large-scale environments conducive to spring MCS initiation over the U.S. Great Plains – presented by Fengfei Song, Ocean University of China, and Ruby Leung
• How Might the May 2015 Flood in the U.S. Southern Great Plains Induced by Sequential MCS Unfold in the Future with Warming? – presented by Zhe Feng and Ruby Leung
• Advances in MCS research enabled by MCS tracking in observations and model simulations – presented by Ruby Leung

10:00 a.m. Press Conference: Of the Jovian Moons and Comet Tails - the Latest Science Results from NASA’s Juno Mission to Jupiter
NASA JPL

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Recent flybys of NASA’s Juno mission have provided the most detailed in-depth exploration of the Jovian moons Ganymede (6/7/21) and Europa (9/29/22) in a generation. And, by the time of this media briefing, the solar-powered spacecraft will have recently completed its 46th close-up science pass of Jupiter. This briefing will include new science results from its Ganymede flyby and preliminary results from the recent Europa flyby – including depth and subsurface structure. The gas giant itself will also be put under the microscope and the latest in captivating Jupiter imagery will also be shared.

Speakers

• Lori Glaze (in person), Director, NASA Science Mission Directorate, Planetary Science Division
• Scott Bolton (in person), Southwest Research Institute
• Thomas Greathouse (in person), Southwest Research Institute
• Candice Hansen (in person), Planetary Science Institute

Contact: DC Agle, JPL Media Relations Specialist, [email protected]

Related talks and posters:

• Preliminary results from Juno’s flyby of Europa (invited), presented by Scott Bolton
• Measured particle flux levels and their importance to Ganymede weathering, presented by Chris Paranicas, Applied Physics Lab, Johns Hopkins University

NASA Goddard

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The growth rates of the concentration of atmospheric methane were the largest in 2020 and 2021 since measurements began 40 years ago. While most emissions are from anthropogenic sources, new research is examining how climate change increases methane emissions from wetlands, even as the habitat is lost. In this roundtable, scientists will discuss how satellite data and ongoing field work in Florida and worldwide is changing how we think about the global methane budget.

Speakers

• Ben Poulter, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA
• Lola Fatoyinbo, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA
• Dan Cusworth, Carbon Mapper
• David Lagomasino, East Carolina University

Contact: Jacob Richmond, Senior Communications Manager, NASA, [email protected]

2:00 p.m. Roundtable: Reviving Wild Rice through Indigenous-Centered Collaborative Research
AGU

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Northern wild rice, called Manoomin in Ojibwe or Psiη in Dakota, is a sacred cultural and dietary staple for Native peoples throughout the Upper Great Lakes region. Due to multiple environmental stressors, including climate and land use change, wild rice populations have been in decline since the onset of Euro-American settlement and colonization into recent decades. Today, members of a collaboration between several Upper Great Lakes tribes and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities are working to understand and protect Manoomin by prioritizing Indigenous knowledge and concerns. This roundtable discussion will provide background on the cultural importance of Manoomin, the need for respectful collaboration, and advances in biophysical and social science around revitalizing wild rice.

Speakers:

• Nisogaabo Ikwe Melonee Montano (in person), Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe; Traditional Ecological Knowledge Outreach Specialist with Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission and University of Minnesota
• Maddy Nyblade (in person), University of Minnesota
• Crystal Ng (in person), University of Minnesota
• Bazile Panek
• William "Joe" Graveen

Unable to attend: Mike Dockry (in person), University of Minnesota

Contact: Rebecca Dzombak, AGU [email protected]

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI)

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The oceans have a huge storage capacity for carbon and need to be a part of any climate solution, in addition to the reduction of emissions. This discussion will explore the potential for oceans to be part of net negative emissions strategies via ocean-based Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) strategies and will outline current thoughts for a scientific code of conduct to guide research into the durability and scalability of the various strategies.

Speakers:

• Margaret Leinen, Director, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
• Ken Buesseler, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 

Contact: Suzanne Pelisson, Director of Public Relations, WHOI, [email protected]

Related talks and posters:

• A Path to Big Blue Carbon- ocean carbon dioxide removal at the gigaton scale – presented by Ken Buesseler
• The ocean may help us address our climate crisis--but how we proceed is as important as the results we achieve – presented by Margaret Leinen

10:00 a.m. Roundtable: Which Future Climate Scenario Deserves Center Stage?
University of Colorado Boulder/Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)

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*New room and zoom link! Join us in Press Roundtable room N231 for a lively discussion about Earth's future.

A healthy debate has developed between scientists regarding which future climate scenarios researchers and stakeholders should focus their time and resources on. Some argue efforts should go towards studying the most high-end climate scenarios, while others argue for a focus on middle- or intermediate-range. As part of an ongoing discussion across many sectors of climate and sustainability science, we ask: Which potential climate future deserves the bulk of research, funding and efforts? Here, scientists from different research realms come together—to explore the positives and negatives of various climate scenarios taking center stage.

Speakers:

• Matt Burgess (virtual), CIRES
• Zeke Hausfather (virtual), Stripe

Contact: Katie Weeman, Science Writer and Social Media Manager, CIRES, [email protected]

Applied Physics Lab (APL), Johns Hopkins University

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Since NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) intentionally slammed into the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos on Sept. 26 – altering its orbit by a whopping 32 minutes – the mission team has been asking itself one fundamental question: what are the implications for using this technique in the future, if such a need should arise?

Join DART scientists for a detailed interpretation of post-impact science and analysis from the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration. In the weeks after impact, scientists turned their focus toward measuring the momentum transfer from DART’s roughly 14,000 mile per hour (22,530 kilometer per hour) collision with Dimorphos. This included further analysis of the “ejecta” — the many tons of asteroidal rock displaced and launched into space by the impact – the recoil from which substantially enhanced DART’s push against its target asteroid.

After observing the ejecta evolution and modeling the dynamics and impact, the science team has a greater understanding of what the spacecraft achieved at the impact site and can more confidently characterize the asteroid’s physical properties, further advancing our understanding of how to address potentially hazardous asteroids in the future. 

We know the experiment worked — now learn how humanity can apply this knowledge.

Speakers:

• Tom Statler, DART Program Scientist - NASA Headquarters
• Andy Rivkin, DART Investigation Team Lead - Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
• Christina Thomas, DART Observations Working Group Lead - Northern Arizona University
• Alessandro Rossi, LICIACube Science Team Member - Instituto di Fisica Applicata Nella Carrara
• Andy Cheng, DART Investigation Team Lead - Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

Contact: Justyna Surowiec, Public Affairs Officer, Johns Hopkins APL, [email protected]

NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL)

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The first sample depot on another planet will be taking physical form on the surface of Mars during AGU 2022. This briefing will chronicle progress in this historic first in space exploration, the latest in Jezero science results, as well as premiere some of the just out breathtaking imagery courtesy of the most advanced suite of cameras and sensors ever sent to the Red Planet. The event will also reveal for the first time the detailed future exploration of Perseverance with its next science campaign – the “Delta Top Campaign.” The significant progress made to date - and future milestones to come – the agency’s Mars Sample Return program will also be covered.

Speakers (all virtual):

• Michael Meyer, NASA
• Justin Maki, JPL, NASA
• Meenakshi Wadhwa, Arizona State University
• Katie Stack Morgan, JPL

Contact: DC Agle, JPL Media Relations Specialist, [email protected]

Related talks and posters:

• Mars sample return campaign science management overview, presented by Lindsay Hays, NASA and Michael Meyer
• Perseverance’s delta-front campaign in Jezero Crater, Mars, presented by Patrick Russell, University of California, Los Angeles and Ken Farley
• Mapping organic-mineral associations in Jezero crater (invited), presented by Sunanda Sharma, Jet Propulsion Lab, California Institute of Technology and Ken Farley
• Orienting rock cores on Mars drilled by the Perseverance rover for Martian paleomagnetism studies, presented by Benjamin Weiss, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Justin Maki
• Strategy for maximizing science from samples collected by Perseverance in the context of the Mars sample return program architecture, presented by Meenakshi Wadhwa
• The Mars sample return campaign science group and summation of the Mars 2020-Mars sample return depot workshop, presented by Michael Meyer and Meenakshi Wadhwa