This presentation highlights some advancements in understanding plasma wave generation and wave-particle interactions in space plasmas. Utilizing data from the Van Allen Probes, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of whistler-mode chorus waves, revealing key properties such as source regions, element durations, and the role of magnetic field inhomogeneity. Further comparative studies of plasma waves across different planets provided crucial evidence supporting the universality of the TaRA model. Additionally, we discovered two distinct forms of energy coupling between plasma waves: between whistler-mode waves through wave beating, and between high-frequency electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves and magnetosonic (MS) waves, driven by anisotropic low-energy protons. These findings significantly enhance our understanding of space plasma dynamics and have broad implications for theoretical models and future research in the field.     

How to cite: Teng, S., Tao, X., and Yao, Z.: Advancements in Plasma Wave Generation and Wave-Particle Interactions in Space Plasmas , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-1765, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-1765, 2025.

In recent decades, an increasing number of spacecrafts have explored the Solar System with a wide range of on-board instruments that have acquired very different types of data to characterize planetary surfaces (topography, spectroscopy, optical imaging...). The best example is Mars, where several orbiters have explored its surface with a wide variety of instruments. These complementary instruments are the key to unravel the geological history of a planet, for which we need constraints on the age of the surface, its composition and its quantitative geomorphology.  Managing and combining this large and diverse dataset is challenging, but we can build on recent advances that now allow a virtual geological investigation of the surface of Mars. From these combined datasets, global and local studies have revealed the complex geological evolution of Mars, in particular the inventory of habitable sites across space and time. Virtual Martian geology is used not only to understand the evolution of Mars, but also to guide the selection of landing sites for in-situ rover missions. We will see how the combination of orbital data is used to down select a landing site for a rover mission, using the Exomars mission as an example, and how it also drives the long-term strategy of the rovers. With a particular focus on the Mars2020 mission, we will see how the combination of orbital data contributes to the diversity and relevance of the sample cache currently being collected on the surface of Mars by Perseverance for Mars Sample Return Program. 

How to cite: Quantin-Nataf, C.: Mars Geology: Virtual to real, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15583, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15583, 2025.

The ionosphere, a natural plasma, plays a significant role in planetary satellite and communication systems and is affected by space weather events. Strong solar activities have sudden and long-term effects on the ionosphere. Ionospheric disturbances caused by these activities are considered to be one of the biggest sources of errors in satellite navigation systems and satellite communications. Both the ionosphere and magnetosphere of Mars and Earth are easily influenced by space weather conditions. Solar winds and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are among the major events influencing space weather. The ionosphere, which is highly sensitive to the effects of space weather, is much thinner and patchier on Mars compared to Earth. The rapid and intense increase in Mars missions in recent years has made today’s research more critical for future missions. In our study, we selected an August 2018 CME and examined its effects on Mars's ionosphere using the instruments on the MAVEN satellite. In addition to the SWEA, SWIA, STATIC values from the MAVEN satellite data, the height change of the relevant solar wind in the Martian ionosphere will be investigated. Investigating ionospheric disturbances with satellites like MAVEN is essential for analyzing the much thinner Martian ionosphere compared to Earth's and contributing to future Mars missions. Understanding space weather is crucial for tracking the evolution of both Earth's and the Red Planet's ionospheric structures and the long-term impact of solar flares on planetary magnetospheres.

How to cite: Dokur, A. and Can, Z.: Effects of the August , 2018 CME on Mars Ionosphere, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-1031, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-1031, 2025.

On 13 June, day 165 of 2024, Juno passed through Io's main Alfvén wing at a distance of some 23 Io radii (R_I) below the moon during perijove (PJ) 62.  Evidence for this passage was clearly seen in the Juno plasma wave, magnetometer, and ion plasma data. The plasma wave signature was an intensification of quasi-electrostatic waves below about 1 kHz with a weaker magnetic component, all lasting for about 90 seconds.  A strong modification of the magnetic field was observed primarily in the co-rotation direction but with a significant component in the direction away from Jupiter. Ions in the range below about 1 keV/q were slowed within the Alfvén wing. The Juno mission has afforded multiple opportunities to examine the Io-Jupiter interaction near the planet and two close flybys through the Alfvén wing during perijoves 57 and 58.  Hence, PJ62 provided observations of the Io-magnetosphere interaction at an intermediate distance.  The broadband electromagnetic emission below 1 kHz was observed during PJs 57 and 58, however, the magnetic component is markedly reduced from those. An estimate of the power in the interaction obtained by scaling the Poynting flux and integrating over the cross section of the flux tube is ~500x10⁹ W.  And modeling of the current suggests filamentation of the Alfvén waves as observed in other Io Alfvén wings.

How to cite: Kurth, W., Sulaiman, A. H., Connerney, J. E. P., Allegrini, F., Valek, P., Ebert, R. W., Paranicas, C., Clark, G., Kruegler, N., Hospodarsky, G. B., Piker, C. W., Kotsiaros, S., Imai, M., and Bolton, S. J.: Juno Observations of Io's Alfvén Wing from 23 Io Radii , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-3870, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-3870, 2025.

Motivated by the need for more accurate radiation environment modelling, this study focuses on identifying and analyzing the drivers behind the sub-relativistic electron flux variations in the inner magnetosphere. We utilize electron flux data between 1 and 500 keV from the Hope and MagEIS instruments on board the RBSP satellites, as well as from the FEEPS instruments on board the MMS spacecrafts, along with solar wind parameters and geomagnetic indices obtained from the OmniWeb2 and SuperMag data services. We calculate the correlation coefficients between these parameters and electron flux. Our analysis shows that substorm activity is a crucial driver of the source electron population (10 - 100 keV), while also showing that seed electrons (100 - 400 keV) are not purely driven by substorm events, but also from enhanced convection/inward diffusion. By introducing time lags, we observed a delayed response of electron flux to changes in geospace conditions, and we identified specific time lag periods where the correlation is maximum. This work contributes to our broader understanding of the outer belt sub-relativistic electron dynamics, and forms the basis for future research.

How to cite: Christodoulou, E., Katsavrias, C., Kordakis, P., and Daglis, I.: Influence of solar wind driving and geomagnetic activity on the variability of sub-relativistic electrons in the inner magnetosphere, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-4720, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-4720, 2025.

This study investigated high-frequency gravity waves (HFGWs) observed by the Zhurong/Tianwen-1 and Perseverance/Mars 2020 rovers between 09:00 and 11:00 local time, from Ls 140° to 165° in Mars Year 36. By analyzing the eccentricity of hodographs for monochromatic wind perturbations obtained from the horizontal wind perturbation, HFGWs were identified via their predominantly linear characteristics.The propagation directions of these waves were determined using polarization relationships from the linear theory of HFGWs. The stability of the background atmosphere was estimated from the Dynamic Meteorology Laboratory general circulation model simulation. The frequency of HFGWs doubled following the onset of a regional dust storm (RDS) in the Utopia Planitia region, where the Zhurong rover landed. The HFGWs observed by Zhurong predominantly propagated in a north-south direction before the RDS and then in an east-west direction afterward. The changes in propagation direction were likely related to atmospheric instability and the background wind changes before and after the storm.

How to cite: Yang, C., Sun, C., Ban, C., Lai, D., Wu, Z., Fang, X., and Li, T.: Observed Martian High-frequency gravity waves by Zhurong and Perseverance rovers before / after a regional dust storm, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-5310, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-5310, 2025.

A typical long-duration positive ionospheric storm (LDPS) developed in the midlatitude ionosphere in the European sector in response to a strong geomagnetic storm of February 26-27, 2023 (Kp = 7-, minimum SYM-H = -161 nT). To advance the current understanding of storm-time midlatitude ionosphere, we investigated the drivers of this LDPS using combination of multi-instrument observations and modeling, with focus on magnetically conjugate locations. Simulations with the field line interhemispheric plasma (FLIP) model constrained by the observed F2-layer peak height (h_mF₂) and density (N_mF₂) data at Kharkiv (50^oN, 36^oE) and Grahamstown (33.3^oS, 26.5^oE) were validated with the O/N₂ ratio data from the Global Ultraviolet Imager (GUVI). Our results indicate that neither the F2-layer peak uplift nor the O/N₂ ratio increase can be considered exclusive drivers of an LDPS. Each driver can be dominant depending on conditions. An LDPS can develop even when the h_mF₂ decreases and sometimes, a small h_mF₂ increase of ~10-20 km can cause a strong LDPS. Similarly, an O/N₂ increase is not a primary or necessary condition for an LDPS to develop but a small O/N₂ increase of ~20-30% can cause a prominent LDPS. Finally, the formation of a positive or negative storm can be inhibited if the raising/lowering of h_mF₂ is counterbalanced by a decrease/increase in the O/N₂ ratio.

How to cite: Reznychenko, M., Kotov, D., Richards, P. G., Bogomaz, O., Goncharenko, L., Paxton, L. J., Hernandez-Pajares, M., Reznychenko, A., Shkonda, D., Barabash, V., and Domnin, I.: Investigation of the Drivers of Long-Duration Positive Ionospheric Storms During the Geomagnetic Storm on February 26-27, 2023, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-5836, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-5836, 2025.

Heavy ion composition and charge-state distributions provide valuable information about the source region of the solar wind due to the 'freeze-in' effect, making them valuable diagnostics for understanding the conditions of their source regions. Small-scale flux ropes (SFRs) have been studied for decades, but their source regions and formation mechanisms are still under debate. While heavy ion signatures in relatively large-scale flux rope structures, known as magnetic clouds (MCs), have been well studied, those signatures are still unclear in SFRs that last only couple of minutes. More importantly, heavy ions do not necessarily travel at the same speed as protons in the solar wind. A potential ion-proton differential velocity could cause a temporal lag between the heavy ion signal and the boundaries of SFRs, which introduces deviations when heavy ion signatures in SFRs are investigated.

In this study, we review ten years of in-situ solar wind heavy ion data obtained from the Solar Wind Ion Composition Spectrometer (SWICS) on board the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE). The data set is derived from the Pulse Height Analysis (PHA) data, at 12-min resolution. By investigating every energy per charge step of each SWICS measurement interval, more SFRs with short duration, even shorter than 12 minutes, are included. We conduct a statistical study on the ion-proton differential streaming in over 6300 SFRs that are heavy ion abundant, as well as in the surrounding solar wind.

Positive ion-proton differential streaming is found common in SFRs but less common in SFRs that are located in recorded Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections (ICMEs) . About 50% heavy-ion-dense SFRs show ion-proton differential velocity larger than 0.2 times the local Alfvén speed. Positive ion-proton differential streaming has also been observed in the background solar wind near SFRs. However, some cases show strong positive ion-proton differential streaming exclusively within SFRs. Ion-proton differential streaming is crucial for understanding heavy-ion signatures in small-scale structures, with their acceleration mechanisms being of particular interest. A further study shows that SFRs detected at 1 AU are unlikely to be the interplanetary manifestations of nanoflare- or microflare-associated small CMEs, or at least not solely so.

How to cite: Gu, C., Heidrich-Meisner, V., and Wimmer-Schweingruber, R. F.: The ion-proton differential streaming observed in Small-scale Flux Ropes, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6031, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6031, 2025.

The Comet Interceptor mission will attempt to fly by a yet undetermined target comet. The conditions of this flyby will remain largely unknown up to the selection of target and possibly even the moment of encounter. A detailed trajectory design phase, which includes verification of the technical limitations implied by the flyby geometry, precedes target comet selection, so the flyby velocity and the details of the geometry are known in advance. Solar irradiance and the neutral gas expansion speed can be estimated reasonably well. However, the comet outgassing rate, the dust production rate, and the solar wind conditions are only known within broader uncertainty margins. The present contribution aims to optimally choose the distance of closest approach based on a simplified formalism that expresses, on one hand, the science return to be expected as a function of the closest approach distance, and, on the other hand, the risks implied by a close approach. This is done by performing Monte Carlo simulations over a large sample of possible flyby configurations, based on the expected probability distributions of the gas and dust production rates and the solar wind conditions, and for different closest approach distances. For small flyby distances, a spacecraft can study the nucleus, the neutral gas coma, and the induced magnetosphere from up close, benefiting the science return. There is a trade-off to be made against the cometary dust collision risk, which becomes larger close to the nucleus. The change of the optimal flyby distance with gas and dust production rate, solar EUV flux, and flyby speed is discussed. The conclusion is that the Comet Interceptor main spacecraft and its two daughter probes – within the limitations of the approximations made – would benefit from a target comet with a gas production rate of 10²⁸-10²⁹ molecules·s^-1, a low dust-to-gas ratio, a high solar EUV flux, and a slow flyby speed (De Keyser et al., 2024, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2024.106032), for which the optimal closest approach distance (somewhere between 300 to 2000 km for the mother spacecraft) would yield a good science return at a limited risk.

How to cite: De Keyser, J., Edberg, N. J. T., Henri, P., Rothkaehl, H., Della Corte, V., Rubin, M., Funase, R., Kasahara, S., and Snodgrass, C.: Finding the optimal flyby distance for the Comet Interceptor comet mission, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6228, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6228, 2025.

Recently, a model of the vertical profiles of shell currents and the magnetic field in the ionosphere has been developed (Romashets and Vandas, 2024). The distribution was determined for polar and equatorial regions. A global three-dimensional pattern of the shell-currents flow and its interconnections with the field aligned current (FAC) can be reconstructed. The magnetic field induced by the shell currents can produce at some locations a geomagnetic effect comparable to that of the ring current. The Biot-Savart integration over the entire ionosphere to derive the shell-currents induced magnetic field could be a challenging task. Here, we present an alternative method which utilizes spherical harmonics of different types for the inner and outer problems. The magnetic field inside the ionosphere is known, and outside of it is current-free and is represented as a gradient of a scalar potential, a sum of spherical harmonic functions with their coefficients. For the inner problem, only terms with (r/r0)^-n-1 are present in the sum, while the outer scalar potential contains only terms with (r/r0)ⁿ. Here 0<n<N, N=13, and r0 is the average distance from the Earth’s center to the ionosphere. Both the inner and outer problems for finding the induced magnetic field have only one condition: the magnetic field calculated with the scalar potential must be equal to the known magnetic field in the ionosphere. This research was supported by the NSF 2230363 and AVCR RVO:67985815 grants.

References.

• Romashets, M, Vandas, Determination of Vertical Profiles of Shell
  Currents in the Ionosphere, Annales Geophysicae, submitted, 2024.

How to cite: Romashets, E. and Vandas, M.: Magnetic field induced by the ionospheric shell currents., EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6829, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6829, 2025.

The Parker Solar Probe (PSP) has provided unprecedented detailed in-situ measurements of proton velocity distributions (VDs) in the young solar wind, unveiling striking hammerhead features. The first interpretations and analyses, including PIC simulations of these unexpected shapes, suggested the involvement of more complex processes, especially kinetic instabilities. Recently, in A&A, 692, L6 (2024), we have identified a self-generated instability triggered by proton beams, whose back-reaction on the proton VDs can form the hammerhead proton population. An effective and numerically less-expensive quasi-linear approach enabled us to explore how this plasma micro-instability reshapes proton distribution, reducing beam drift and inducing a strong perpendicular temperature anisotropy, the main feature of the hammerhead structure. Our results align with PSP's in situ data and provide a fresh perspective on these distributions' dynamic and transient nature. These findings offer new insights into the role of kinetic instabilities in shaping space plasma dynamics.

How to cite: Shaaban, S. M., Lazar, M., López, R. A., Yoon, P. H., and Poedts, S.: Plasma Mechanisms Behind Hammerhead Proton Populations Observed by Parker Solar Probe, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-8215, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-8215, 2025.

The Chang’e-6 (CE-6) mission, part of China's lunar exploration program, marked a significant milestone as the first mission to return samples from the far side of the Moon. One of the highlights of CE-6 mission is that it piggybacked four international payloads, including the INstrument for landing-Roving Laser Retroreflector Investigations (INRRI), developed through a collaboration between the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics — Frascati National Labs (INFN-LNF) and the Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences (AIRCAS).

INRRI is a lightweight, passive optical instrument composed of eight cube corner retroreflectors made from fused silica, offering a wide 120° field of view. This robust and miniaturized design has a high level of maturity and inheritance from previous missions such as NASA’s Mars InSight and Perseverance, where similar retroreflectors had been successfully deployed. For CE-6 mission particularly, INRRI was mounted on a specialized bracket to minimize interference from ascender plume effects during liftoff. CE-6 INRRI underwent rigorous qualification tests, including mechanical (acceleration, shock, sinusoidal and random vibrations) and thermal vacuum tests, to validate its structural integrity. After integrated with the lander, CE-6 INRRI underwent the whole spacecraft random and sinusoidal vibration tests and successfully passed all evaluations.

The CE-6 INRRI serves as a high-precision absolute control point, crucial for improving lunar surface mapping especially for the lunar far side. Initial validation of INRRI’s operational status has been achieved through observations by the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) onboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Future observations by laser ranging from lunar orbiters will refine its position, and will contribute to improving the accuracy of orbit determination for lunar orbiters, advancing studies of lunar geodesy, Earth-Moon dynamics and lunar physics.

Building on this success, the Italian-Chinese collaboration team are working on the piggybacking of Chang’e-7 LAser Retroreflector Arrays (CLARA), including MoonLIGHT (Moon Laser Instrumentation for Geodesy, Geophysics and General relativity High accuracy Tests) and INRRI. Currently INRRI for CE-7 has just completed its mechanical tests and is in the process of arranging the subsequent experiments.

How to cite: Wang, Y., Dell'Agnello, S., Di, K., Muccino, M., Cao, H., Porcelli, L., Deng, X., Salvatori, L., Ping, J., Tibuzzi, M., Li, Y., Filomena, L., Kang, Z., Montanari, M., Meng, Z., Mauro, L., Xie, B., and Maiello, M.: The First Lunar Far-Side Laser Retroreflector Deployed on Chang’e-6 Lander and Prospect for Chang’e-7 Mission , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-8557, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-8557, 2025.

With the growth of industry, transportation and machinery the issue of studying and damping vibrations and acoustic oscillations has become critical. Up to 4,000 earthquakes occur on Earth each year. Structures such as skyscrapers and bridges must be designed to withstand ground vibrations without damage. Machinery and tools operate with components that torsion and vibrate in the form of structural nodes. These nodes are connected by specific links to form complex multi-mass mechanical systems. Preventing vibration damage to multi-mass structures remains a pressing problem today. Therefore, the development of methods to calculate the amplitude, frequency and phase of the generated vibrations is a relevant task. Currently known methods of dynamic calculations are the use of analytical techniques for determining the intrinsic frequency of transverse and longitudinal oscillations of shells, rods and rotating machine parts (L.D. Landau, E.M. Lifshitz, V.I. Mossakovskiy, K.V. Frolov). Each task solved with these methods must strictly define the initial and boundary conditions of the oscillatory process. The application of these computational methods to multi-mass systems is very labor-intensive because, in addition to the calculation of amplitude, frequency, and phase, it is necessary to take into account the mode of oscillation. The study of free oscillations in multi-mass systems requires the formation of a system of linear differential equations and the use of cyclic frequency equations for multi-mass systems. Currently, simpler engineering methods such as electromechanical analogies were widely adopted in engineering practice. This period also saw the beginning of research into the resonant frequencies of living organisms to ensure the safety of vehicles subjected to vibration loads. This research was particularly important to the aerospace industry. When launching rockets carrying astronauts, spacecraft experience tremendous vibration shocks. In order to avoid harmful resonance effects, the natural frequencies of the astronaut's body and its organs must be determined. We have used a method based on electromechanical analogies to calculate the resonance frequencies. This method is based on the model of the astronaut's body as a vibrating system proposed by Prof. I. K. Kosko. The computational scheme of this model was developed for the first time. The astronaut's body was modeled as a lumped mass system connected by elastic links, the stiffness of which was determined according to the series and parallel rules. The study used data on the elastic modulus and mass of each part of the astronaut's body. The intrinsic frequency of the astronaut's body was calculated to be 1.702 Hz. The results highlight the importance of taking these data into account when designing the damping system for the astronaut's seat in order to prevent the vibration frequency of the rocket from coinciding with the resonance frequency of the astronaut's body. This approach allows the identification of frequencies that must be avoided to minimize the risk of damage caused by vibration loads. This work demonstrates the application of electromechanical analogies as a simplified engineering method for determining the natural frequencies of complex multi-mass systems such as the human body.

How to cite: Sokol, G., Snobko, D., Kadilnikova, T., and Dalik, M.: Method of electromechanical analogies in calculations of natural frequencies of multi-mass mechanical and biological systems, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10294, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10294, 2025.

Space weather causes geomagnetic disturbances that can affect critical infrastructure. Understanding the dynamic response of the coupled solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere system to severe space weather is essential for mitigation purposes. This paper reports on a detailed analysis of the most recently observed May 10, 2024, storm. We demonstrate that the global response to the storm dynamics was strikingly different in various sectors and at various latitudes. Results in the American and European sectors show that the most extreme mid-latitude response was associated to substorm related activity. However, no adverse impact of the storm on bulk power systems was report in North America or other parts of the world.

How to cite: Ngwira, C. and Weygand, J.: Global Geomagnetic Response and Impact During the 10 May 2024 Gannon Storm – Observations and Modeling, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12754, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12754, 2025.

During the May 2024 space weather event, Kiruna magnetometer (KIR) registered historically large positive deviation of the northward geomagnetic disturbance (dX = +1300 nT) at around 12 UT (14 MLT, i.e., postnoon).  The large dX is observed entire Scandinavia, giving AU = 1431 nT at 12:11 UT, but not in the Atlantic or North American sectors (although we do not know the disturbance at 15-23 ML because no data at > 55° Mlat is available).  

Such large positive dX of dayside stations is not very rare, most of them are observed in the North American continent.  Out of total 21 AU peaks of > +1300 nT separated by more than 1 hour (12 magnetic storms) during 1978-2019, 2 events are peaked at 09-15 UT, 8 events at 15-21 UT, 6 events at 21-03 UT, and 5 events at 03-09 UT.

For the European sector, dX value in the May 2024 event is the second largest after the 24 November 2001 event in both AU statistics (1978-2019) and Kiruna magnetometer (1962-2024).  The same uncommon nature is even seen in Kp=9 that was registered at 09-12 UT.  During 1932-2024, Kp=9 was observed only during 4 events at 09-15 UT, whereas Kp=9 was observed during 10 events at 15-21 UT, 8 events at 21-03 UT, and 5 events at 03-09 UT.

Although these UT anomaly is within the statistical fluctuation, we attribute this to the geomagnetic tilt toward the North American sector.  This makes stations at the same geomagnetic latitudes (e.g., AE stations and Kp stations) located at lower geographic latitudes (i.e., under higher ionospheric conductivity) in the North American sector than the other longitudes when the stations are located near noon (09-15 MLT).  Accordingly, the dayside dX and local K tends to register higher in the North American sector than the other longitudes.  Since extremely large AU (> 1300 nT) tends to occur near noon (this is the case with the 12 storms mentioned above), we expect more frequent large dX when the North America is near noon (15-24 UT).  For Kp, large Kp requires K=9 at Kp station even in the dayside where the disturbance is normally smaller than the nightside.  Then the North America may easier to register large K even during daytime due to higher conductivity.  If the rareness of high AU and Kp during 09-15 UT has such solid reason, the May 2024 space weather event was actually very unusual. 

Finally, there is one more peculiar feature of the large dayside AU for the May 2024 event is that it is preceded only by normal substorm (AL ≈ -600 nT) and followed by a strong negative excursion in the Alaska-Pacific sector instead.  This is quite different from ordinary dayside positive dX that is normally preceded by substorm of large AL (which is the case for the 24 November 2001 event with AL < -1300 nT).

Acknowledgment: We used provisional AE, SuperMAG, INTERMAGNET and Kp.  We thank all contributing observatories and institutions for these datasets.  

How to cite: Yamauchi, M., Nanjo, S., Kotani, T., and Matzka, J.: Unusually large positive geomagnetic variation (AU) near noon on 11 May, 2024, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12948, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12948, 2025.

After its arrival at Jupiter in July 2016, Juno conducted a global survey of Jupiter's magnetosphere with its highly eccentric polar orbit. Since then, the JADE instrument has accumulated a large amount of plasma measurements. Using a developed forward modeling method and a supercomputer cluster, we fit all ion measurements between 10 and 50 R_J from PJ5 to PJ56, obtaining a dataset with 70,487 good fits that consists of the following set of plasma parameters: abundances of different heavy ions, density, temperature, and 3‐D bulk flow velocity of heavy ions. This dataset has applications in the research on large-scale structures and small-scale dynamics in Jupiter’s magnetosphere, particularly the equatorial plasma disk region. Potential applications of this dataset include, but are not limited to, the following topics: 1) How is plasma distributed radially and vertically within the plasma disk? 2) What drives the local time asymmetry of plasma flow? 3) What are the consequences of centrifugal instabilities? 4) How is mass and energy transported in the magnetosphere? 4) How is force balance achieved and maintained? An overview of the dataset and some example applications will be presented in this talk.

How to cite: Wang, J., Bagenal, F., Wilson, R., Valek, P., Ebert, R., and Allegrini, F.: Ion Parameters Dataset from Juno/JADE Observations and Its Applications, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-14033, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-14033, 2025.

Introduction: The Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program began in 2014 as part of the Hubble 2020 legacy initiative (Simon et al. 2015; DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/812/1/55). These observations were meant to cement long-term legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) by ensuring a regular cadence of giant planet observations to fill temporal gaps between individual programs. The giant planets have highly dynamic atmospheres, so long-term trends tied to seasonal or other evolutionary cycles require regular data collected using the same instruments and filters.

In addition to building up a long data base of consistent observations on an annual cadence, serendipitous discoveries have been made along the way. Filters extend from the near-UV (F225W at 225 nm) to the near-IR (FQ889N at 889 nm), and each planet is imaged to cover all longitudes over a period of two planetary rotations. All raw data are immediately available to the public, and the team also hosts high level science products in the form of global maps at the MAST Archive (Simon 2015; DOI: 10.17909/T9G593).

OPAL at Jupiter: Hubble’s exquisite spatial resolution and OPAL’s global and temporal coverage allow detailed study of Jupiter’s long-lived vortices, high speed narrow wind jets, and alternating, variable, bands of colored clouds. OPAL results have included studies of vortices including the Great Red Spot (GRS), zonal wind speeds, small atmospheric waves, long-term color trends, and UV-dark ovals in the polar hoods.

Space missions: OPAL data have extended the science return of several space missions, with Jupiter observations commencing one year before Juno arrived at Jupiter. OPAL wind and cloud structure measurements have been used in diverse analyses of phenomena from the gravitational anomaly of the GRS, to deep zonal atmospheric structure revealed by microwave emission, to convective cycles in cyclonic vortices. Wave, jet, and vortex features previously observed by Voyager and Cassini have also been studied in greater detail with the long-term OPAL program.

Earth-based observatories: High-resolution visible-wavelength observations from OPAL target the planets near solar opposition to maximize spatial resolution, as do many Earth-based programs. Multi-observatory studies include correlations between cloud color from OPAL and microwave brightness from the VLA, comparisons between Doppler velocimetry from the ground and time-series imaging from OPAL, calibration, validation, and context for spectroscopic measurements, and deep context for stratospheric aerosol anomalies.

Conclusion: The results cited here are a small subset of the Jupiter results achieved with the OPAL monitoring of the outer planets, with additional discoveries at Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. As of January 2025, 62 papers have cited OPAL data. With more than 10 years of data in hand, and continuing for the life of Hubble, we expect the scientific return to increase exponentially. OPAL serves as a model for future long-term programs at other observatories.

Acknowledgments: This research is based on HST observations (with NASA support; see Simon et al. 2015). GSO was additionally supported by NASA through contract 80NM0018D0004 to JPL.

How to cite: Wong, M. H., Simon, A. A., and Orton, G. S.: The Hubble OPAL Program: 10 years of time-variable phenomena on Jupiter and the other giant planets (invited), EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-14713, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-14713, 2025.

During the active phase of solar cycle 25, the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) spacecraft frequently observes circularly polarized Type III radio storms. The most intense and longest duration event occurred following a large coronal mass ejection (CME) on 5 September 2022. For several days following the CME, PSP observed a storm of Type III radio bursts. The polarization of the storm started as left hand circularly polarized (LHC) and switched to right hand circularly polarized (RHC) at the crossing of the heliospheric current sheet.

We analyze properties of this Type III storm. The drift rate of the Type IIIs indicates a constant beam speed of ~0.1c, typical for Type III-producing electron beams. The sense of polarization is consistent with fundamental emission generated primarily in the o-mode.

In addition to this prototypical event, we present a survey of radio observations throughout the PSP mission, demonstrating that the majority of encounters contain Type III storms, that the storms are typically strongly (but not completely) circularly polarized, and that the sense of polarization and the sign of the radial magnetic field are consistent with o-mode emission.

How to cite: Pulupa, M., Bale, S., Jebaraj, I., Romeo, O., and Krucker, S.: Circularly Polarized Type III Storms Observed with PSP, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-14886, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-14886, 2025.

Modeling the formation conditions of the Galilean moons remains a significant challenge. While it is widely assumed that the moons formed within a circumplanetary disk (CPD) that surrounded Jupiter during the final stages of its growth, the physical properties and composition of this disk remain poorly constrained in theoretical models.

One approach to infer the properties and composition of the CPD is to use the bulk composition of the Galilean moons as a reference to extract compositional trends for the disk. A notable example is the gradient in water content with distance from Jupiter: from completely dry Io to a 1:1 water to rock ratio on Ganymede and Callisto. This gradient strongly suggests that the CPD exhibited a corresponding water abundance gradient during its formation.

With the JUICE and Europa Clipper missions currently cruising to the Jovian system, the coming decade will provide an unprecedented opportunity to study Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. These missions are expected to refine our understanding of the bulk composition of the moons and provide new constraints for CPD models.

In this context, we aim to model the midplane volatile species composition of the CPD using a 2-dimensional proprietary framework. The model assumes a quasi-stationary disk heated by viscous stress, infalling gas, and the young, hot Jupiter. A key feature of the model is the presence of shadow regions that can be up to 100 K cooler than their surroundings and persist for up to 100 kyr.

Our results indicate that the profile of volatile species in the midplane shows enrichment peaks during the early evolution of the disk. However, maintaining these enrichments requires an accretion rate to the CPD of about 10^-7 M_jup/yr for at least 1 Myr. If the accretion rate decreases too rapidly, the ice abundances rapidly decrease.

In addition, we show that shadows within the CPD can significantly influence its volatile composition on short timescales of less than 100 kyr. These shadowed regions may trap ice of volatile species that would otherwise remain in the vapor phase, thereby altering the overall composition of the CPD.

How to cite: Schneeberger, A., Bennacer, Y., and Mousis, O.: Impact of self-shadowing on the Jovian Circumplanetary disk ice composition, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15614, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15614, 2025.

Some problems of gravity assist and terraforming of Mars

Introduction

Here we consider versions of terraforming that would allow colonists to live without pressure suits. The current mass of the Martian atmosphere is 2.5x10¹⁶ kg [1]. We consider 4 variants of terraforming. C indicates how many times we need to increase the mass of the atmosphere. For version v1 we assume a pressure of 10 kPa at the bottom of Hellas Planitia, C= 8.6, for v2 we use 10 kPa at the reference level for Mars and C=16.4, for v3 we use 101.3 kPa at the bottom of Hellas Planitia, C= 87.3, and for v4 we use 101.3 kPa at the reference level for Mars, C= 166.1.

For variant v4, 1 body with a radius of ~100 km (and density of 1000 kg m^-3) would be sufficient.

Possible sources

Celestial bodies orbiting far from the Sun contain large amounts of water, CO₂, nitrogen, etc. There are two places where there are enough bodies useful to our problem: the Kuiper Belt (KB) and the Oort Cloud (OC) [2]. The Kuiper Belt (KB) contains over 70,000 objects with diameters larger than 100 km. The mass of the KB is large enough [2, 3]. The total mass of the OC is ~3×10²⁵ kg [4]. The problem is the large distance from the Sun, so we consider only the KB as the source.

Transporting bodies

Initially ion engines change orbit of the chosen body, in order to later use the effect of gravity assist. This requires precise maneuvering. Since there are many bodies in the KB whose size is sufficient for gravity assist, we assume that a change in velocity of ~50 m/s  (using the engine) is sufficient. However, in our case, gravity assist is fraught with significant danger. KB bodies are unstable when volatiles escape. To calculate possible tidal effects, we use the methods developed in [5].

The gravity assist may be used to reduce the relative velocity of Mars and the impactor. This is important because strong heating of the atmosphere will lead to the escape of gases [6].

[1] Mars Fact Sheet. NASA.

[2] Hargitai, H. and Kereszturi, A., 2015, ISBN 978-1-4614-3133-6.

[3] Lorenzo I. 2007. Monthly Notices RAS. 4 (375), 1311–1314.

[4] Weissman, P. R. 1983. Astronomy and Astrophysics. 118 (1): 90–94.

[5] Czechowski, L., 1991. Earth, Moon and Planets, 52, 2, 113-130 DOI: 10.1007/BF00054178

[6] Czechowski, L., et al., 2023. Icarus, doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus. 2023.115473.

How to cite: Czechowski, L.: Some problems of gravity assist and terraforming of Mars, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-16329, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-16329, 2025.

The formation of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune remains poorly understood, with several competing hypotheses attempting to explain their observed compositions. In particular, the carbon enrichment and nitrogen depletion observed in these planets challenge traditional models of planet formation. However, the measurement of the deuterium-to-hydrogen (D/H) ratio in Uranus by the Herschel Space Telescope provides a critical constraint on its bulk composition, including the CO/H2O ratio, providing valuable insights into the planet's formation and evolution.

D/H measurements in comets and planets are crucial for understanding their formation history. In the protosolar nebula, water ice is enriched in deuterium in the colder, outer regions and depleted in the warmer, inner regions relative to protosolar hydrogen. For example, D/H measurements from gas giants, which are predominantly composed of hydrogen, typically reflect or closely resemble the protosolar hydrogen D/H ratio. In contrast, D/H measurements from ice giants like Uranus and Neptune show supersolar D/H ratios in their atmospheres. The leading hypothesis to explain this is that their envelopes formed through the mixing of protosolar hydrogen with deuterium--rich primordial ices that they accreted during their formation. 

Under this assumption, the atmospheric D/H ratio of Uranus can be directly linked to the D/H ratio of its building block ices, depending on models of its internal structure. Assuming a cometary D/H ratio for the primordial ices accreted by Uranus enables the estimation of the planet's bulk composition, particularly its CO/H2O ratio. The objective of this study is to compare the inferred CO/H2O ratio of Uranus, derived from D/H remote sensing measurements, with values predicted for the protosolar nebula using a protoplanetary disk model. These findings provide critical constraints on the timing and location of Uranus's formation within the early Solar System and offer valuable insights into the processes that shaped its evolution.

How to cite: Benest Couzinou, T. and Mousis, O.: Constraints on Uranus formation from its D/H ratio, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-16970, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-16970, 2025.

The observing time of the cutting-edge radio interferometers tends to be heavily oversubscribed. This, coupled with the fact that solar activity is inherently unpredictable leads to limited observing time being granted for solar observations. There are, of course, dedicated solar monitoring radio telescopes, but their data quality, and hence the resulting science, pales in comparison with what is possible with the best-in-class instruments. A robust and reliable automated near-real time observing trigger for cutting-edge radio interferometers derived from dedicated solar monitoring telescopes can improve this situation dramatically. By enabling one to use precious observing time only when some solar activity is known to have just taken place, such a system can vastly increase the efficiency of limited available observing time to capture instances of solar activity. With observatories like the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) on the horizon, the need for such a system is even more imperative. We present such a system developed by us for the SKAO-low precursor, the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) based on near-real time data from the Yamagawa spectrograph which observes the Sun daily from rise to set in the band from 70 MHz to 9 GHz and is located at similar longitude as the MWA.  Generating an observing trigger poses an interesting and challenging problem. Not only does one have to reliably detect and reject any radio frequency interference (RFI) which is inevitably present, to be successful, a trigger needs to be raised as early after the start of the event as feasible. We have devised, implemented and tested algorithms to identify and remove the RFI and do an effective ‘de-noising’ of the data to improve the contrast with which features of interest can be detected. We note that much of the event data lost due to the latency from Yamagawa can be recovered using the data buffer available at the MWA, which was designed exactly to meet such needs. These triggers have been tested and tuned using the archival Yamagawa data, end-to-end tests of triggered observations have successfully been carried out at the MWA. Very recently this real time triggering has been operationalized at the MWA, a very timely development in view of the approaching solar maxima.

How to cite: Patra, D., Kansabanik, D., Oberoi, D., Kubo, Y., Williams, A., Meyers, B., and Nishizuka, N.: A Real-time Automated Triggering Framework for Solar Radio Burst Detection using Yamagawa Spectrograph for the Murchison Widefield Array, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18086, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18086, 2025.

With the rapid advancements in computer graphics, rendering technologies, and artificial intelligence, 3D visualization of deep-space environments has become a transformative approach to improving teleoperation systems. Traditional Lunar-to-Earth teleoperation faces challenges such as low bandwidth, high latency, and limited situational awareness, which hinder intuitive and efficient remote operations. To address these issues, we propose a novel framework that integrates AI-driven 3D reconstruction algorithms and cutting-edge rendering techniques to reconstruct and visualize deep-space environments with exceptional precision and clarity. By processing sparse telemetry data into high-fidelity 3D models and leveraging photorealistic rendering, our system enhances spatial awareness, reduces cognitive load, and improves decision-making efficiency for ground-based operators. Furthermore, the framework is designed to overcome deep-space constraints, such as limited computational resources and communication delays, ensuring its robustness in real-world missions. This approach not only advances the efficiency of telemetry and teleoperations but also bridges the gap between remote sensing data and actionable insights, paving the way for more autonomous, immersive, and scientifically impactful deep-space exploration.

How to cite: Li, Y., Yang, S., Lu, J., Chen, J., Xu, T., Xing, Z., Chen, L., and Zhang, Z.: Immersive 3D Visualization for Enhanced Lunar Teleoperation, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18510, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18510, 2025.

The ESA-PROBA3 spacecraft was successfully launched aboard a four-stage PSLV-XL rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, on Thursday, December 5th, at 11:34 CET (10:34 GMT, 16:04 local time).  Formation flying a pair of spacecraft will form an artificial solar eclipse in space, casting a precisely-controlled shadow from the Occulter platform to the  Coronograph spacecraft to open up sustained views of the Sun's faint surrounding corona. The payload on the ESA-PROBA3 Occulter spacecraft includes the Digital Absolute Radiometer (DARA) from the Physikalisch Meteorologisches Observatorium, Davos and World Radiation Center (PMOD/WRC). It aims at measuring the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) in orbit. The destination of the spacecraft is a highly elliptical orbit (600 x 60530 km at around 59 degree inclination). We will present the initial results from this new experiment since its launch.

How to cite: Montillet, J.-P., Finsterle, W., Haberreiter, M., Schmutz, W., Pfiffner, D., Koller, S., and Gander, M.: Initial Results of Total Solar Irradiance Measurements by DARA-PROBA3, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18737, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18737, 2025.

Aromatic compounds, with their stable cyclic structure and [4n+2]π electrons, are resistant to chemical attack and degradation. This stability makes them prevalent in celestial bodies and valuable in designing polymers that withstand harsh space conditions [1-4].
In interstellar space, aromatic molecules make up ~20% of atomic carbon and are key to forming complex organic molecules [1]. Cyanopyrene, cyanonaphthalene, and indene have been identified in the TMC-1 molecular cloud [5]. Aromatic molecules are also found in Solar System objects, including Martian soil from Gale Crater mudstones [7-10].
Thiophene, an aromatic molecule, was detected by NASA’s Curiosity rover in the Glen Torridon clay unit, where high-temperature pyrolysis (~850°C) revealed sulfur-bearing organics, including alkyl derivatives, likely from Martian organic materials [9]. Atomic oxygen (O) in its ground state (³P) is a strong oxidant that degrades aromatic compounds like benzene and pyridine, releasing CO [10-13]. Recent models show O(³P) is present in small amounts on Mars’s surface and abundant in low orbit [13]. This presents a dual challenge: degrading thiophene-based polymers used in spacecraft and explaining Mars's organic scarcity [16].
Using quantum chemistry methods, we examined thiophene fragmentation from O(³P) interactions. Our results matched experimental data from the crossed molecular beam (CMB) scattering technique [10], showing that the reaction forms thioacrolein and CO, attacking the sulfur atom and breaking the aromatic ring. This ISC-enhanced mechanism may destabilize sulfur-containing polymers and contribute to organic compound loss on Mars.

Additionally, the photodissociation of O₃ on Mars generates highly reactive atomic oxygen in the excited ¹D state, which likely accelerates organic degradation [13]. While photodissociation degrades complex organics, residual organic matter remains unless converted to volatile species. These findings are pivotal for developing space-resilient materials and understanding atomic oxygen's role in Mars's chemical evolution. Furthermore, the degradation products, including released carbon, may contribute to forming prebiotic molecules, enriching the diversity of planetary systems and interstellar chemistry.

References
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[2] D.A.F.T.W. Strganac, et al., J. Spacecr. Rocket 1995, 32,502–506


[3] K.K. De Groh, et al., High Perform. Polym. 2008, 20, 388–409


[4] T. K. Minton, et al., ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2012, 4, 492−502


[5] G. Wenzel, et al., Science, 2024, 386,810-813.


[6] M.A. Sephton, Nat. Prod. Rep., 2002,19, 292-311


[7] C. Sagan, et al., Astrophys. J., 414, 1, 399-405

[8] J. L. Eigenbrode, et al., Science, 2018, 360, 1096–1101


[9] M. Millan, et al., J. Geophys. Res. Planets, 2022, 127, e2021JE007107


[10] Vanuzzo G., et al., J.  Phys. Chem. A, 2021, 125, 8434–8453


[11] Recio P., et al., Nat. Chem., 2022, 14, 1405–1412


[12] J. Lasne, et al., Astrobiology, 2016, 16, 977


[13] G. M. Paternò, et al., Scientific Reports, 2017, 7, 41013


[14] S. A. Benner, et al., PNAS, 2000, 97, 6, 2425–2430


How to cite: Campisi, D., Parriani, M., Pannacci, G., Vanuzzo, G., Casavecchia, P., Rosi, M., and Balucani, N.: Reaction of Atomic Oxygen with Thiophene: Implications for Satellite Polymers in Low Mars Orbit and Chemistry of Mars, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-20186, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-20186, 2025.

This work examines the extent and form in which uncertainty of Extreme Event Attribution (EEA) results is best communicated to stakeholders. To achieve this, we develop communication materials in both text and graphics and test them for accuracy and accessibility through guided interviews with scientists and stakeholders.

Extreme weather events pose significant challenges for human civilization. Climate change can influence both the intensity and probability of specific extreme weather events, such as heatwaves or heavy rainfall. EEA has become an established tool to answer public questions about the contribution of climate change to such events. However, the results of EEA studies are often accompanied by considerable uncertainties. Communication of results, including an accessible representation of uncertainty, is therefore a fundamental necessity in this field of research, extending beyond the general effort to make scientific findings accessible to the public. Media representatives, who often bridge the gap between attribution scientists and the public, are therefore key stakeholders in this research.

We present the current state of research on communicating uncertainties in this field and outline our iterative approach to working with attribution scientists and media representatives alike to determine what should be communicated and how to communicate it effectively. Finally, we evaluate which communication materials are both relevant and accessible, and we reflect on the lessons learned for future communication efforts concerning EEA results.

This study is part of ClimXchange, which aims to enhance the usability of climate science for societal stakeholders. ClimXchange is embedded within the ClimXtreme research consortium, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), which focuses on extreme weather events in the context of climate change.

How to cite: Knauf, J., Zimmermann, T., Schröter, J., Tivig, M., and Kreienkamp, F.: Communicating uncertainty in extreme event attribution to the media, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-2164, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-2164, 2025.

Skilful weather forecasts help users make sound decisions when faced with potentially hazardous climatic conditions. However, this beneficial result may be reduced or negated in the absence of an effective communication of forecast uncertainty. On average, forecast skill improves for shorter lead times, which implies that we expect differences between successive forecasts. While there is a vast literature on the communication and visualisation of weather forecast uncertainty, little attention has been dedicated to communicating forecast changes to non-specialist audiences. Nonetheless, this is a key dimension of forecast uncertainty, and there are several user cases in which providing information about possible future changes in weather forecasts can improve their use.

An illustrative example is the situation in which a user has to decide whether to act now or wait for the next forecast. This can be as simple as a professional deciding whether to drive or not to a client on a day for which extremely heavy rainfall is forecasted, potentially leading to flash flooding. Cancelling well-ahead of time makes rescheduling easier, yet the forecast has a larger chance of being wrong. Cancelling on short notice minimises the chance of a false alarm, but poses greater logistical challenges for both the professional and the client. Something as simple as knowing how often the later forecast is better – for example knowing that 9 times out of 10 a heavy rainfall forecast issued one day ahead is better than one issued 5 days ahead – can qualitatively help the non-specialist users in this fictitious example to make a more informed decision.

In this contribution, we consider a variety of cases in which information on forecast changes may be of value. We then present a set of easily interpretable metrics making information on such changes accessible to non-specialist users.

How to cite: Messori, G., Jewson, S., and Scher, S.: Communicating uncertainty in weather forecasts: the role of forecast changes, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-4471, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-4471, 2025.

Whether its memories of a cold, frosty Christmas or an August bank holiday beach trip interrupted by rain, many cultural, sporting, and social events in the United Kingdom have strong associations with particular weather conditions. As the average global temperature increases, the impacts of a changing climate are likely to be felt across many aspects of British life, including in the public’s experiences of these popular events. Several recent works conducted by the UK Met Office have sought to make the local day-to-day impacts of climate change more understandable for the public by exploring likely climatic conditions of popular events by the 2050s. These works have received strong engagement from the public, demonstrating the demand for relevant and understandable climate information.

We serve this demand by using the 2018 UK Climate Projections (UKCP18) and HadUK-Grid observations data to evaluate how climate change will affect the climatology of a diverse range of British social, cultural, and sporting events. To explore and communicate the uncertainties in UKCP18 due to inherent model biases, several bias correction methods are applied to the data and the resulting data is analysed together to give an improved uncertainty range. The research will focus on assessing changes to temperature variables at global warming levels of 1.5°C and 3.0°C to illustrate these two future scenarios and the uncertainty within each scenario.

We will show that some events are likely to have a significantly altered climatology which is likely to substantially change the nature of these events or force them to change when they occur during the year to give the best chance of having favourable climatic conditions. By assessing the impact of climate change on popular British events such as the London Marathon and Glastonbury Festival the findings of this research will prove useful in communicating the impacts of climate change in a way which will resonate with the British public.

How to cite: Woods, L., Pope, J., and Fung, F.: Impacting on our Lives: Using British sports and culture to explain uncertainty in climate projections, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-9081, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-9081, 2025.

Flood frequency analysis is a cornerstone of hydrologic studies, providing a probabilistic framework to relate the magnitude of extreme events to their frequency of occurrence. This methodology is critical for designing flood-related infrastructure, conducting economic evaluations of flood control projects, and delineating floodplains. However, its utility depends heavily on data quality, model selection, and parameter estimation, each of which introduces uncertainties that become especially significant for rare events.

This presentation will address key sources of uncertainty, including model choice, parameter inference methods, and sample size limitations. Strategies for incorporating these uncertainties into engineering practice are discussed, with an emphasis on probabilistic representations and innovative design approaches. An exceptional flood, a "black swan" event, is used to illustrate the paradox of increased uncertainty despite improved information. This case underscores the importance of expanding flood analyses through historical records, regionalization, and causal modeling, particularly in the context of a changing climate.

The presentation will be designed to foster cross-discipline exchange in the quantification of uncertainty in Earth Sciences.

How to cite: Viglione, A.: Flood Frequency Hydrology: Navigating Uncertainty in Flood Design, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11466, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11466, 2025.

Two-dimensional (2D) images are often used to communicate the results of scientific investigations and predictions. Examples are weather maps, earthquake hazard maps and MRI slices. In contrast to statistical analyses of individual variables or time series, there are currently no established methods for visualizing the uncertainties in the 2D images. However, this would be necessary to make the information in the 2D images clear to scientists as well as to the non-expert public audiences in order to avoid misinterpretation and over-interpretation.

In this study, we demonstrate the challenges and approaches to uncertainty visualization using the case study of drought forecasting, which is relevant for climate adaptations and mitigations. A drought is a deviation (anomaly) from the parameter value expected from long-term data. In our case, the parameter under consideration is soil moisture, which is an important parameter for various environmental processes. The soil moisture can be used in combination with soil type to estimate the amount of water available to plants in the topsoil. If the amount of water available to plants according to the so-called percentile approach deviates significantly from the value expected from long-term data, this is referred to as an agricultural drought.

The drought forecast is based on ensemble modelling. This means that the results of various weather forecast models are used to predict the development of soil moisture for the period of the weather forecast. For each weather model used, a possible soil moisture development is predicted. Each of these is used for a drought forecast. The result of the ensemble modelling is therefore several forecasts, which can differ significantly. Due to the use of different weather models and the consideration of uncertainties in the models, the result of ensemble modelling is therefore a large number of drought forecast maps. When visualising the results, often only a map of the mean values resulting from the predictions is shown. If only the mean value is displayed, however, the information about a possible difference and thus the uncertainty of the predictions is lost. In other words: If individual cases from the ensemble predict the possibility of drought, this will not be clearly visible in the mean value map.

In this presentation, we will demonstrate and discuss different approaches to visualize the uncertainty in the prediction.

How to cite: Dietrich, P., Najafi, H., Pelzer, M., and Mohadjer, S.: Visualization of uncertainties in 2D images, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-13135, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-13135, 2025.

Uncertainties are an unavoidable part of scientific research. Practical limits with regard to the number, accuracy and precision of available observations as well as limitations in terms of methodological accuracy and modelling contribute to the fact that even the most elaborate and meticulous forecasts can never be deterministic and no completely reliable and accurate predictions for decision-making can be achieved. In concrete applications, a sufficient understanding of the accuracy and reliability of scientifically based predictions is important, for example in disaster prevention or resource planning. For example, natural hazard maps are primarily intended for those who have the necessary expertise to understand them. However, they are also used in their unaltered form by non-experts for decision-making, many of whom are unfamiliar with the scientific background and implications of the map.

We address this problem using an earthquake hazard map which can be relevant to non-expert audiences when seeking advice on purchasing a house or obtaining insurance. In order to understand how non-experts perceive a scientifically compiled earthquake hazard map, we conducted an online survey with 229 participants. This was done as part of the 2024 Science & Innovation Days (a public engagement event) in Tübingen, Germany. Participants were asked about their first impression of the map in terms of information content, any need for further explanation and possible actions to take. Other questions assessed participants’ previous experiences and self-assessment of hazard perceptions.

In this presentation, we will discuss the survey results and share lessons learned when communicating information that contains uncertainty with non-expert audiences.

How to cite: Dietrich, P., Dietrich, M., Pelzer, M., and Mohadjer, S.: Non-expert understanding of hazard maps: Insights from an online survey, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-13260, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-13260, 2025.

Working with environmental data means dealing with complex processes, limited data (in space and/or time) and the impossibility of setting up controlled experiments, leading to uncertain predictions of system behaviour.

In the field of statistical hydrology, many efforts have been made during the last decades to provide methods to quantify uncertainty, but the common practice of infrastructure design has not yet incorporated them. This may be due to several reasons, including the complexity of the methods, which are often difficult to apply in most everyday cases, and regulations that "favour" well-established requirements.

Here we present the "uncertainty compliant design flood estimator" (UNCODE) method, which accounts for aleatory uncertainty in the estimation of the design flood value. The method provides a corrected design value and is easy to use for practical purposes as simplified formulae are provided to quantify the correction factor. However, in addition to its practical application, it can also be used to compare different models with different levels of uncertainty and to highlight the "cost" of uncertainty.

Finally, its mathematical formulation allows a direct link to be made between the classical approach to hydrological design, based on a fixed hazard level (or return period), and a risk-based design approach, which is widely recognised as a more flexible method but is not usually included in regulations.

How to cite: Ganora, D.: Uncertainty in flood frequency analysis and its implications for infrastructure design, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15189, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15189, 2025.

Maps are the most commonly used means of visualizing and communicating natural hazard information to support decisions about risk mitigation. They are a product of hazard assessment studies which involve different input parameters with uncertainties relevant to decision making. This process is further complicated by the subjective uncertainties that arise in the audience when confronted with the visualization of hazard information. 

Natural hazard maps are primarily designed to be used by experts, but they are also used in their unaltered form to communicate with non-experts, many of whom are unfamiliar with the map’s scientific background and implications. Previous studies focus mainly on evaluating such maps with expert groups (e.g., directly involved stakeholders and authorities), with less attention on non-experts (e.g., the public audiences) who are confronted with these maps before purchasing a house, getting insurance or making other critical decisions. 

To address this gap, our study investigates how well hazard maps are understood and interpreted by non-expert audiences. We tested two earthquake hazard maps of Germany that differ in color palettes (rainbow vs. colorblind-friendly and perception-optimized yellow-orange-red-brown color palettes) and data classification schemes (algorithmic Fisher vs. quasi-logarithmic classification schemes). We showed both maps to 20 non-expert participants during the 2024 Science & Innovation Days (a public engagement event) in Tübingen, Germany. Participants answered map-reading and hazard perception questions (e.g., participants were asked to read off the hazard level for a given city, and to compare hazard levels between for a pair of cities) while their eye movements were monitored with eye-tracking software. 

To identify if either map improved map reading and hazard perception, participants’ responses were scored, analyzed and compared using a two-sample Mann–Whitney U and Fisher’s Exact tests. In general, the differences detected in participants’ responses were not statistically significant, perhaps due to the small sample size. Still, we observed that nearly all participants who used the redesigned map (8 out of 9) correctly read the hazard level for a city while only 33% (3 out of 9 participants) who used the rainbow color map responded correctly.

Eye-tracking data were used to analyze focus-metrics. Composite heatmaps accumulating the duration of eye fixations of all participants indicate that their eye movements were focused more on the high hazard zones and the corresponding values shown on map legend when answering questions using a hazard map redesigned to use best practices for hazard perception.

To quantify these differences, the ratio of fixations on high-hazard zones to total fixations on the map were calculated for both map versions. The data were tested for normality and the statistical significance of the differences were evaluated using Independent Samples t-tests for equal variances. While the results were not statistically significant, participants viewing the redesigned map showed a greater number of fixations on high-hazard zones compared to the participants viewing the original map, with a moderate effect size. We note tendencies in the data that encourage the repetition of the experiment with a larger sample size.

How to cite: Mohadjer, S., Ergün, G., Mutz, S. G., Schneider, M., Schürmann, T., Pelzer, M., and Dietrich, P.: Non-Expert Understanding of Hazard Maps: An Eye-Tracking Study , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17779, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17779, 2025.

A presentation of emerging themes and lessons learnt from examples of best practice in uncertainty quantification and communication relevant to climate services.  Drawn from existing literature and reports, and from a community engagement workshop.

• Consider the climate risks that are of most concern to the audience. 
• Use language the audience is familiar with (don’t say uncertainty).
• The precision of uncertainty information should be relevant to the situation.
• Understand existing narratives about climate uncertainty.
• Use communication about uncertainty to build trust.
• Be aware of deep uncertainty.

Standardised approaches to uncertainty communication should consider not only the climate science component, but also the complexities regarding socio-economic vulnerability.

Climateurope2, is a Horizon Europe project with a consortium of 33 parties from 13 countries that includes intergovernmental institutions such as the World Meteorological Organisation, social sciences, humanities and STEM expertise, assurance providers, SMEs, and standardisation bodies. Together we are building a community of practice for the standardisation and support of climate services.

How to cite: Pascoe, C., Dankers, R., Domingo, X., and Pagé, C.: Don't say uncertainty: preliminary best practices and emerging themes for uncertainty quantification and communication in climate services from the Climateurope2 project., EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18364, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18364, 2025.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need to effectively communicate forecasts and their uncertainty. This is especially important if the aim is to minimize the risk of misinformation and poorly-informed decision-making. Both the IPCC and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction have identified risk communication, complexity and uncertainty as major challenges to decision-making, and call for better understanding of how existing risk communication practices are perceived by those affected and those making decisions.

Despite these calls, many geoscientists, especially early career researchers, lack opportunities to discuss scientific uncertainty and explore ways to communicate uncertainty to different audiences, including the non-scientific publics. To address this demand, we organize the international training school “Understanding the Unknowns: Communicating Uncertainty as a Driving Force for Geosciences”, which is co-sponsored by the EGU and set to take place at the University of Tübingen in Germany from March 17 to 19, 2025. This in-person, three-day training school aims to equip Early Career Researchers with knowledge and skills needed to effectively account for and communicate uncertainty in geosciences with their peers as well as public audiences.

Some of the biggest challenges of training programs on uncertainty relate to the interdisciplinary nature of the concept: understanding and effectively communicating uncertainties requires knowledge and skill sets typically taught and researched across a range of diverse fields. Highlighting this interdisciplinary background, we combine insights from geoscientific uncertainty assessment and outputs (e.g., maps, interpretations, models, simulations, time series) with approaches from (visual) rhetoric, science communication, presentation research, and multimedia competence. 

Building on existing good practice, the training strives to equip geoscientists with the tools and skills they need to communicate uncertainty, help reduce misinformation, and enhance future decision-making. This will be done collaboratively through an interdisciplinary partnership between the Department of Geosciences, the Research Center for Science Communication at the Department of General Rhetoric, and Global Awareness Education at the University of Tübingen. The new approaches and exercises developed for this training will not only be practically applied in the training school, but also reflected and evaluated, including a pre-workshop survey addressing expectations and needs identified by the participants and a concluding qualitative evaluation.

In this presentation, we will discuss our multifaceted practices and strategies applied to foster skills in communicating uncertainty in geosciences, present the results of the accompanying survey and evaluation used in this training, and conclude with lessons learned and best practices recommended to further develop similar opportunities in the future.

How to cite: Pelzer, M., Dietrich, P., and Mohadjer, S.: Fostering Skills in Communicating Uncertainty in the Geosciences: a review of concepts, strategies and approaches applied in the training school “Understanding the Unknowns: Communicating Uncertainty as a Driving Force for Geosciences”, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18655, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18655, 2025.

Sub-seasonal weather forecasting is notoriously difficult, particularly for the extra-tropics. Predictions must be probabilistic, and from weeks 3 or 4 onwards forecast distributions are often very close to model-climate distributions. Together, these facts make conveying a meaningful forecast to customers extremely difficult, and those forecasts are then very vulnerable to misinterpretation. Standard map-based graphical output can show little more than whether the forecast mean is for average, or above average or below average conditions – ostensibly a 3-category classification. And indeed “average” in this scheme can be interpreted variously as a genuine forecast of average, or a “no-signal” prediction, which cannot both be right.

So ECMWF is working towards a new two-layer brand of map-based sub-seasonal forecast products, that succinctly represent both the mean anomaly and the forecast uncertainty. We plan to call these “quantile-based weekly guidance maps”. The overarching aim has been to exploit much better than hitherto the information content of the sub-seasonal forecast system in a compact format. Once these first go public they will be classed as an “experimental product”. We hope for wide-ranging uptake, providing greater outreach for our forecasts than hitherto, to benefit multiple sectors of society.

The new graphical output can be summarised in a 3-by-3 matrix form where one dimension represents the mean anomaly and the other relative spread. So for example a mean anomaly around zero can either represent a high confidence, narrow distribution forecast of average conditions (a true forecast of “average”), or more commonly a no-signal forecast where forecast and climate distributions are much the same (= “we don’t know”), or less often an odd scenario in which forecast spread exceeds climate spread (= “very uncertain indeed”). The graphical versions of the new system, and the 9 classes, will be demonstrated using real ECMWF forecast examples. These will highlight how translating appropriately chosen mathematical metrics into suitable graphics, and on into plain language text, can lie at the heart of successful uncertainty communication. Clear documentation for users is another key requirement.

How to cite: Hewson, T.: Making Uncertainty in Sub-seasonal Weather Forecasts Intelligible, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-19375, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-19375, 2025.

How to cite: Stepanovic, J., Claes, S., and Sermeus, J.: Immersed in Uncertainty: Discussing Uncertainty in Science in a Planetarium, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-21809, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-21809, 2025.

Translation of geoscience research into tangible changes, such as modified decisions, processes or policy in the wider world is an important yet notably difficult process. Co-RISK is an accessible (i.e. open access, paper-based, zero cost) ‘toolkit’ for use by stakeholder groups within workshops, which is intended to aid this translation process. It is given a robust basis by incorporating paradox theory from organisation studies, which deals with navigating the genuine tensions between industry and research organizations that stem from their differing roles. Specifically designed to ameliorate the organizational paradox, a Co-RISK workshop draws up ‘Maps’ including key stakeholders (e.g. regulator, insurer, university) and their positionality (e.g. barriers, concerns, motivations), and identifies exactly the points where science might modify actions. Ultimately a Co-RISK workshop drafts simple and tailored project-specific frameworks that span from climate to hazard, to risk, to implications of that risk (e.g. solvency). The action research approach used to design Co-RISK (with Bank of England, Aon, Verrisk), its implementation in a trial session for the insurance sector and its intellectual contribution are described and evaluated. The initial Co-RISK workshop was well received, so application is envisaged to other sectors (i.e. transport infrastructure, utilities, government).  Joint endeavours enabled by Co-RISK could fulfil the genuine need to quickly convert the latest insights from environmental research into real-world climate change adaptation strategies.

https://gc.copernicus.org/articles/7/35/2024/

How to cite: Hillier, J. K. and van Meeteren, M.: Co-RISK: A tool to co-create impactful university-industry projects for natural hazard risk mitigation, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-291, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-291, 2025.

Skeptical Science is a volunteer-run website publishing refutations of climate misinformation. Some members of the Skeptical Science team actively research best-practices refutation techniques while other team members use these findings to share debunking techniques effectively either in writing or through presentations. During 2024, our team collaborated with other groups specializing in fact checking and countering misinformation about the climate crisis. With this submission we highlight two of these collaborations:

• Creating fact briefs in collaboration with Gigafact
  Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact — a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. 
• Turning a PDF-based report refuting 33 climate solutions myths into stand-alone rebuttals
  In early 2024 we spotted an impressive report addressing climate solutions misinformation, "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles," written by members of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. We collaborated with the authors to create 33 stand-alone rebuttals based on the report's content to make it possible to link to each of the rebuttals directly.

Both of these collaborations help with sharing fact-based information in order to counter mis- and disinformation spread online.

How to cite: Winkler, B.: Collaborations between Skeptical Science and other groups to spread fact-based information, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-1439, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-1439, 2025.

In an era characterised by the political economy of financialised capitalism, accounting plays an instrumental role in shaping decision-making through the principle of materiality.  This principle influences how physical climate risks are perceived and addressed.  The role of accounting and the principle of materiality are foundational to using corporate reporting to prepare markets for the effects of climate change.  
The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD, 2023) has highlighted persistent inadequacies in corporate disclosures, particularly their failure to provide decision-useful information for managing or mitigating the financial and societal impact of extreme weather events.  Inspired by the Absurdist literary tradition, the paper offers a conceptual alternative: expressing materiality as an aesthetic performance that embraces the ambiguity and complexity of climate risk.
To visualise this interplay, disclosure is interpreted as a form of communicative storytelling, where accounting frameworks set the plot and characters, shaping stakeholder engagement.  The tangible impacts of physical climate change function as the unpredictable forces driving the narrative, while aesthetic materiality transforms these elements into a cohesive strategic risk management framework.  This dynamic symbiosis, imbued with Absurdist tensions, illustrates how narrative, financial structures, environmental realities, and performative aesthetics collectively influence decision-making in the face of climate risks.
The Absurdist lens reveals how contemporary disclosures embody a condition of "waiting for the correct data," a state of deferral legitimised by incremental approaches to risk management.  Traditional calculative paradigms in accounting—such as materiality thresholds, metrics, and financial quantification—struggle to address the non-linear and interdependent risks posed by extreme weather events.  By aestheticising materiality, this paper argues that corporate disclosures can better cope with these limitations, engaging stakeholders through participatory and relational communication rather than static, deterministic metrics.
Aesthetic materiality shifts the focus from rigid frameworks to systemic interconnectivity, inviting decision-makers to critically reflect on the unpredictability of climate risks and to co-create meaning alongside stakeholders.  This perspective complements tools such as impact-based forecasting and early-warning systems by addressing the socio-cultural dimensions of risk communication.
Empirical insights from 44 interviews with stakeholders across 16 FTSE350 organisations illustrate the limitations of calculative realism in accounting for climate scenarios.  Participants reported deferring action in pursuit of elusive “objective truths,” grappling with helplessness amidst multiple potential realities and feeling hopeless by the inexpressible ambiguity associated with accounting for extreme weather risks.  These findings underscore the Absurdist tension between striving for control and coping with the immeasurable—a tension that current frameworks fail to resolve.
Aesthetic materiality is a conceptual response to the systemic inadequacies of existing corporate disclosure practices.  It disrupts normative accounting principles such as reliability and objectivity, advocating instead for evocative narratives, symbolic imagery, and dialogical engagement that better reprehend the interconnected nature of extreme weather events.  Such a transition also signals a shift beyond the prevailing interdisciplinary accounting discourse by foregrounding the limits of language and representation, emphasising the performative aesthetics of materiality and expressing disclosure as an unending process. 

How to cite: O Rourke, J.: Accounting Beyond the Calculative: Expressing Corporate Disclosure Through Aesthetic Materiality, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-1592, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-1592, 2025.

Developing innovative public engagement measures are central to addressing many of the key geoscience related challenges within the EU. One of the most pressing European challenges includes achieving a sustainable and secure supply of critical raw materials (CRMs). These materials include vital metals used in renewable energy technologies, for which the EU is often totally reliant on imports at both the extraction and processing level. Hence, EU climate neutrality by 2050, as per the European Green Deal, hinges on CRM supply. However, this is not often discussed in the public realm.

Informal education spaces such as festivals provide unique environments for science communication, where incidental adult audiences can stumble upon new scientific concepts and problems in engaging ways. However, to be successful, science exhibits at such events need to capture attention and stimulate the audience in a short period of time. The critical raw material challenge is underrepresented in the festival environment likely due to historically negative public attitudes towards mining. Hence, a necessary science communication endeavour is to develop a novel engagement activity that engages adult audiences at festivals with this issue and stimulates conversation. We present a hands-on, challenge-based public engagement activity/tool for use in the fast-paced science and arts festival environment, where contact time is limited and interaction is key. Designed to simulate the supermarket experience, ‘GreenDealz’ brings participants through tactile ‘shopping’ tasks, with evaluation points included throughout. The main aim of GreenDealz was to engage participants with the concept of critical raw materials and their demand for renewable energy technologies in a relatable and task-based way.

We outline the iterative process of developing GreenDealz for the festival environment, including ideation, design, and an evolution of evaluation from classic self-reported techniques to more novel and festival friendly ‘embedded assessment’ measures. Importantly, we highlight how this activity has been tested and validated via a mixed methods approach: our quantitative data, collected across several festivals in Ireland, yields significant findings about audience learnings and engagement, while our qualitative data, gleaned through less time-restricted participant interactions sheds a deeper light on the effectiveness of this tool in achieving learning outcomes and sparking interest in critical raw materials within non-specialist audiences.

How to cite: Blennerhassett, L., Schuitema, G., and McAuliffe, F.: GreenDealz: a hands-on shopping activity for public engagement with critical raw materials, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-2292, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-2292, 2025.

Austrian citizens, like many others worldwide, show high levels of skepticism coupled with low interest in science. This disengagement is closely tied to limited science literacy, characterized by a poor understanding of the scientific process and scientific data generation. Initiatives operating at the intersection of science and education provide a valuable opportunity to develop innovative methods of science communication, enhance science literacy, and positively influence attitudes toward scientific findings. To address these challenges, scientists from diverse disciplines, educators, and administrators have joined forces to establish the “Interdisciplinary Network for Science Education Lower Austria (INSE)”. Led by WasserCluster Lunz and funded by GFF NÖ, this partnership aims to: (i) deepen public understanding of science by engaging students and citizens in scientific processes across disciplines, (ii) spark interest in science through innovative communication strategies, and (iii) build trust in the benefits of science by showcasing its contributions to addressing societal and ecological challenges.

In this presentation, we will introduce the INSE partnership and highlight our science education concepts tailored to different educational levels. At the primary level, the focus was on research in the humanities, emphasizing the significance of reading and writing. At the lower secondary level, the main principles of the "Nature of Science (NOS)" were introduced, while at the upper secondary level, students conducted their own research projects, either in the natural sciences (a respiration experiment in aquatic ecology) or the social sciences (a social science survey). Students explored the principles of specific research methods and examined the similarities and differences among various scientific disciplines. This approach aimed to provide participants with both a solid understanding of general scientific principles and insights into discipline-specific methodologies.

We will also present initial evaluation results on the effectiveness of our educational activities. Additionally, we aim to foster new collaborations at both national and international levels to strengthen our network and expand the resources available for science education.

How to cite: Feldbacher, E., Sippl, C., Lughammer, B., Capatu, I., Jöstl, G., Eibl, D., Panzenböck, M., Coulson, L., Akbari, E., and Weigelhofer, G.: Connecting Science and Education: Innovative Approaches from the INSE Network, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-2755, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-2755, 2025.

SCAPE° is a new science center under development in Offenbach, Germany, dedicated to making weather, climate, and their profound connections to human life both tangible and engaging. Situated in the heart of the city, SCAPE° aims to bridge the gap between science and society through interactive exhibits, immersive workshops, and dynamic community events.

This presentation will provide an overview of SCAPE°’s organizational structure, the planning and design process, and the challenges encountered in creating this innovative space. Key exhibits will be showcased, including hands-on installations such as turbulence simulators and immersive visualizations of global weather phenomena, demonstrating the center’s commitment to interactive and educational engagement. Examples of workshops and events will illustrate how SCAPE° fosters dialogue and involvement in a scientific, but also artistic way. 

By sharing the experiences and lessons learned in developing SCAPE°, this presentation seeks to inspire innovative approaches to science communication and public engagement in weather and climate sciences, while raising awareness and excitement for SCAPE° itself as a vital new space for exploration and education.

How to cite: Frank, B.: SCAPE° Offenbach: A New Science Center Bringing Weather and Climate to Life in the Heart of the City, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-2820, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-2820, 2025.

This study investigates how the mining industry employs science communication tactics, specifically framing, warmth, honesty, and relatability when engaging with the public. Guided by three primary research questions, this project seeks to identify: (1) which frames and tactics Canadian mining organizations employ when communicating about mining, (2) how these tactics influence engagement among audiences with pro-, anti-, and neutral attitudes toward mining, and (3) whether the use of tactics varies based on the type of organization.

A mixed-methods approach integrates content analysis, survey responses, and thematic analysis. Advertisements, corporate websites, and corporate responsibility documents from various mining organizations are systematically coded to identify framing strategies and communication techniques. To evaluate changes in public perceptions, knowledge, and behaviours, participants complete pre-engagement surveys to establish baseline attitudes toward mining. They then engage with assigned materials in two stages: first independently and later through guided discussion and interviews conducted via Zoom. Post-engagement surveys capture immediate reactions and subsequent changes in perception, knowledge, and potential actions. Transcribed interviews from guided discussions are analyzed thematically to uncover deeper insights into how audiences engage with mining-related messaging.

This research is significant for its focus on the intersection of industry messaging and public engagement, addressing a critical gap in understanding how science communication influences public trust and opinion in resource-driven sectors. Insights from this study will inform best practices for transparent, relatable, and effective communication in the mining industry, with broader implications for improving public engagement strategies in other science-based fields.

How to cite: Onstad, C. and van der Flier-Keller, E.: Preliminary Insights into Science Communication Strategies in Canadian Mining Messaging: A Mixed-Methods Perspective, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-2911, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-2911, 2025.

Some environmental issues (nuclear/special wastes, CO₂ storage) are extremely long-lasting, from thousand to one million years (Flüeler 2023). Three aspects are mandatory to recognise them adequately: their complexity (e.g., safety “proof”), uncertainty (aleatory/epistemic …), inequality (today’s risk deciders vs. future risk bearers). All require a deep sense of multiperspectivity: Changing perspectives enables a conscious view of an issue from different angles.

With exceptions, conventional practice reveals “technical” and “acceptance” approaches. The problem is said to be solely political, “the public’s” poor state of knowledge spurs the plea for “outreach”, following the “deficit model”: Specialists inform laypeople to close their “information gap”. The long term is covered by safety margins and, as a last resort, by waste retrievability.

Applied research is more sophisticated. Nuclear waste safety cases have become comprehensive, considering insecurities and stakeholder involvement (NEA 2020b). Still, the very long term (10,000y plus) is left to risk analysts. “Communication Across 300 Generations” (Tannenbaum 1984) or “to bridge ten millennia” (Sebeok 1984) are issues reserved to semiotics and not really developed further (NEA 2019). Conserving artefacts and symbols over time seems unsatisfactory, even unrealistic. Site-selection procedures have, partly, recognised the need for decades-long processes (NEA 2020a).

What is “long term”? (cf. Flüeler 2023, 55ff.) It would be futile for society to deal with the year 800,000 AP, but it is to reckon what Brand and Eno called “the Long Now”, https://longnow.org: 10,000 years back and forth, yet a generations-based approach seems more practical, maybe the Canadian First Nations’ yardstick of the Seven Generations (NCSL 2017): “Traditionally, no decision was made until it was understood how it would affect the next seven generations”. Or we draw on Boulding’s suggestion: 100 years backward and foreward (grandparents to grandchildren) (Boulding 1978).

At any rate, our responsibility to future generations “requires new operationalisations, new norms of practice, new sets of values, new virtues, and – last but not least – new institutions” (Birnbacher 1988). It needs new skills for sustainable governance, transparent (digital) dashboards, open online platforms to table/respond to controversial views/assertions, transdisciplinary labs, ways to address indeterminacy (>>“uncertainty”), VR learning machines to train changing perspectives, etc.

The ethical, political and institutional complexity insinuates that there is no silver bullet to tackle the issue of governance: “The solution is easily summarized, but much less easily achieved: to establish ecological reflexivity as a core priority of social, political and economic institutions” (Dryzek/Pickering 2019). We need continual discourse to transform our societies sustainably, rather than pre-fixed concepts in order to restore supposedly paradisiac past states.

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Birnbacher, D. Verantwortung für zukünftige Generationen. Reclam, Stuttgart (transl.).

Boulding, E. The Family as a Way into the Future. Pendle Hill, Wallingford, PA.

Dryzek, J.S./Pickering, J. The Politics of the Anthropocene. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford.

Flüeler, T. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-03902-7.

NCSL. https://healingofthesevengenerations.ca/about/history.

NEA/Nuclear Energy Agency/2019. Preservation of Records, Knowledge and Memory Across Generations. OECD, Paris.

NEA/2020a. Final Disposal of Radioactive Waste. Policy Brief.

NEA/2020b. Two Decades of Safety Case Development: An IGSC Brochure.

Sebeok, T.A. Communication Measures to Bridge Ten Millennia. BMI/ONWI-532. Battelle, Columbus, OH.

Tannenbaum, P.H. Communication Across 300 Generations: Deterring Human Interference with Waste Deposit Sites. BMI/ONWI-535.

How to cite: Flüeler, T.: How to communicate “long term”? 10, 100, 10,000 years …? Practice, research, reflections, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-4847, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-4847, 2025.

Similar to X-rays used in medicine to scan human bodies, to understand the characteristics of the oceanic crust that covers >70% of our planet, marine geophysicists conduct controlled source seismic experiments at sea on research vessels. We produce tiny earthquakes using compressed air, which travel through the subsurface built of different rock types; the differences in the rocks introduce changes in the propagated waves, which are registered by an array of receptors and then processed to produce seismic images. However, this field of research is not commonly known by school students or the general public. To bridge this gap, we designed a seismic atelier to expose the less-known but marvelous world of marine geophysics and show it as a possible career path. The atelier includes a presentation of our work at sea supported by pictures and videos, presentation of the Ocean Bottom Seismometer (OBS) developed and designed internally at IPGP, and model that simulates seismic data acquisition. For this model, we obtained the EGU Public Engagement Award in 2023. The elements that constitute the model:

• 400 l water tank, floating LEGO ship
• three 3-D printed OBSs connected to an electromagnetic mechanism that simulate deployment and recovery of the instruments
• ballons that are perforated under the water to mimic the seismic source
• hydrophone connected to a laptop for signal recording

The experiment is accompanied by a 5-question quiz tailored to correspond to the age of the participants; all the topics concerning the questions were covered in the presentations. The quiz is conducted before and after the atelier, which helps us to evaluate the impact of outreach activity. All the questions were designed as a multiple-choice. For example, for the age 11-15 years, one question is: What is the temperature of the deep ocean?, with the offered responses: a) 0-3º, b) 23-25ºC, and c) 0 -10 ºC.

We have already run the atelier on two occasions, and the results are promising. The first time was during the Fête de la Science (Open House event in France) at IPGP in early October 2024, during which we presented our atelier to four groups, 10-12 participants (9-12 years old) in each group. The second session was organized with 30 high-school students (~15 years old). The quizzes' analyses clearly show that the number of correct answers increases by up to 50% after the conducted atelier, demonstrating the positive impact of the activity on student knowledge. The results also show that some questions were tackling less-known topics. For instance, the question we gave as an example above was consistently answered incorrectly by ~80% of students before the atelier; in contrast, after the atelier, the situation was reversed, and >90% of the participants gave the correct answer. Overall, the impressions of the students after participating in the atelier, especially the youngest ones, are highly positive, and we hope they will develop a certain level of passion for marine sciences. The next stage for our project would be to film it and make it available online in different languages to reach students internationally.

How to cite: Marjanovic, M., Besançon, S., Hautemayou, D., Mahato, S., and Luc, T.: How do we make an X-ray scan of Earth’s oceanic crust?, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6769, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6769, 2025.

How to cite: Pocaterra, C., Mingardi, V., Mentini, L., Silvi, S., and Careccia, A.: Science Communication through Engagement and Outreach for the bioeconomy, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-7084, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-7084, 2025.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects have historically struggled to be inclusive and accessible to students from diverse backgrounds. Furthermore, STEM subjects have often been rigid in their teaching structure, creating barriers to education for students with more specific (or unrecognised) learning needs. Our STEM outreach course, Think Like A Scientist, has been running in a number of English prisons since 2019, and started in Canada and Australia over the past two years. Our students in prison often have diverse learning needs – a classroom often presents numerous barriers (sensory, communication, information processing, and regulation) which particularly impacts neurodivergent students (e.g., autism, ADHD, OCD, dyslexia, etc.). In our teaching in prison, we have been conscious of creating different educational access points that are not solely reliant on rigid teaching structures.

Although our outreach programme is tailored to the restrictive prison environment, the application of its core principles are fundamental Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) practices that can be applied to university-level teaching and supervision. Here, we outline the choices we have made in prison education to increase educational engagement for those within the neurodivergent umbrella – and how these choices can map onto university teaching to widen participation for STEM students. Specifically, we will describe our university campus work in a few key areas: creating relatable science content for our geoscience student body, giving students a voice in their education, adding reflection activities, and fostering a classroom environment that is inclusive and accessible to all. Finally, we welcome an open discussion on potential best inclusive practices in the geosciences.

How to cite: Heron, P., Osowski, K., Crameri, F., and Williams, J.: Adventures in (geo)science communication: mapping outreach practices into university classrooms, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-7405, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-7405, 2025.

AGROECOLOGY, the European Partnership "Accelerating Farming Systems Transition: Agroecology Living Labs and Research Infrastructures," is a significant European research and innovation initiative involving the European Commission and 26 Member States, Associated Countries, and Third Countries, with a total of 72 partner organizations. The goal of AGROECOLOGY is to assist the agricultural sector in addressing the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, food security and sovereignty, and environmental sustainability, while ensuring agriculture remains profitable, sustainable, and attractive to farmers.

Transforming the agricultural sector to meet societal and policy demands requires bold and systemic changes. AGROECOLOGY fosters for solutions that leverage natural and biological processes, blending state-of-the-art science, technology, and innovation with farmers' knowledge. By pooling resources from the European Commission and the involved member states and regions, the Partnership funds high-level research in Living Labs and Research Infrastructures, co-creating relevant knowledge and technologies aligned with the priorities of the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda for the Farming System Transition.

To support these efforts, a range of activities is being implemented to inform, engage, and empower stakeholders. These activities aim to enhance capacities, raise awareness, and facilitate the exchange of knowledge and data. A key element of this effort is the Conversations on Agroecology which serve as foundational steps to strengthen agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS) for agroecology. These conversations foster collaboration and connections between Living Labs, Research Infrastructures and stakeholders across Europe.

The online Conversations on Agroecology are held monthly throughout the Partnership, enabling the mobilization and networking of agroecology actors in Europe and beyond. In 2024, six online conversations were organized on various themes, such as the role of AKIS for agroecology, agroecological transition, and the power of networks for agroecology. Through these monthly conversations, AGROECOLOGY engages diverse groups of actors, ensuring involvement of institutional AKIS actors, farmers, and farming networks to ensure inclusive participation and drive progress toward sustainable food systems by 2030.

How to cite: Sandén, T., Fohrafellner, J., Pires da Silva, A., and Brites, C.: Empowering Stakeholders to Drive Farming System Transition: Conversations on Agroecology, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-9684, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-9684, 2025.

The popularity and use of Participatory or Citizen Science (CS) in scientific research has increased over the recent years, and the literature reports that CS can promote positive change; enhance public knowledge, understanding, and awareness of environmental issues; and amplify conservation efforts.

Accessibility to polar regions is limited and expensive.  With resources from other traditional platforms (i.e. research vessels and funding) decreasing, research institutions are looking at alternatives that involve partnering with the private sector tourism as a ‘crowdsourcing’ data collection option, with the added benefit of passenger participation and education. CS monitoring is a cost-effective alternative for greater spatial and/or temporal coverage, including geographical areas that remain under-researched. 

HX’s Science & Education Program focuses on broadening guests’ understanding of the polar regions and ecosystems, as well as the impacts of climate change. Our guests become active participants in data collection through an immersive educational onboard program and on-site interaction with researchers. During 2024 we allocated over 1900 cruise nights to welcome 80+ researchers from collaborating institutions on our vessels and our guests contributed more than 30,000 data submissions to over 20 different CS projects globally.

To better understand this potential and to evaluate the longer-term effect of participation in CS and science related activities on guests, HX carried out a research project in partnership with UTAS during 2022 and 2023. Results from semi-structured interviews with over 70 guests on three HX vessels suggest that guests saw CS, and the Science & Education program more generally, as a core part of their experience, and many returned with a heightened sense of the fragility of the region.

However, and as an example, HX represents approximately 8% of the Antarctic expedition cruising tourism. The full potential for future partnerships to tap into these vast resources as an industry is yet to be realized.

How to cite: Meraldi, V., Hess, C., Stainton, H., Evans, H., Leane, E., and Hardy, A.: The untapped potential of Citizen Science to support research in the polar regions while educating captive audiences on board expedition cruise vessels., EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11418, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11418, 2025.

Most people in Irish society, when asked, “Do we experience earthquakes in Ireland?” would likely answer, “No we don’t”. However, this is incorrect – earthquakes do occur in Ireland and are occasionally felt. This misconception is understandable as Ireland is not located near the edge of a plate boundary and the earthquakes we experience tend to be of very low magnitude (M2.5 is the largest onshore Irish earthquake recorded so far). As a result, earthquakes are not a regular thought for the population of Ireland. We aim to raise awareness on this topic.

The QuakeShake programme has these main aims:

• Encourage Irish society to consider seismic activity and monitor seismic events both locally and globally and thereby develop an integrated community of citizen seismologists throughout Ireland.
• Provide teaching resources for educators and school students.
• Inspire interest in Physical and Earth Sciences at tertiary levels.
• Support the government’s STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering Art and Mathematics) initiative.
• Foster a closer relationship between researchers and citizens.
• Gather and share seismic data to support scientific research in various seismological fields.

The programme is managed by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) and co-funded by DIAS, Geological Survey Ireland (GSI), and Research Ireland. QuakeShake functions as the outreach programme for the Irish National Seismic Network (INSN), the national earthquake monitoring body in Ireland. It supports and promotes the monitoring efforts of the INSN.

QuakeShake is facilitating the operation of affordable seismometers, known as Raspberry Shakes, in schools, homes, and public institutions. These compact, professional grade seismometers require only power and internet connectivity to operate. In 2024, QuakeShake distributed seismometers via public raffle and workshops for teachers and the public. In 2025, the aim is to distribute even more Raspberry Shake devices and encourage the public and schools to acquire their own units. 

At EGU 2025 we will showcase the programmes development, aimed at educating people from all backgrounds in Ireland about both Irish and Global earthquakes. We will illustrate how QuakeShake is actively building a community of citizen seismologists across Ireland.

How to cite: Reilly, L., Möllhoff, M., Bean, C., Power, S., Collins, L., Smith, P., Grannell, J., Mohamed, H., Smithers, E., and Grange, P.: Current progress of the QuakeShake outreach programme. How are earthquakes being brought to the attention of Irish society?, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12106, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12106, 2025.

How to cite: Alonso, A., Prieto, D., García-Hernández, R., Afonso, D., de los Rios, H., D’Auria, L., and Pérez, N. M.: GUAYOTA: a weekly multi-language chart information on the seismo-volcanic activity in the Canary Islands , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12352, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12352, 2025.

Rainfall is very commonly experienced by most people, often seen as a constraint. Anyway, usually people are not really paying attention to it, being too busy with their daily life. As rainfall and hydrology scientists, we aim to reach out to the general public to increase knowledge in an area of widespread misinformation. More importantly, we aim to enhance curiosity and awareness of people in their geophysical environment. In order to contribute to this much needed efforts, we designed and implemented a series of multisensory experiences centered on rainfall with three purpose in mind: i) Actively engage people on geoscience topics by pushing them to pay attention to their environment ; ii) Create a simple and pleasant moment for people enabling to focus on geophysical environment. iii) Create some new knowledge on rainfall for them. With regards to the latter point, the involvement of one’s senses is a great tool to facilitate memorization.

The experiences are simple and do not require any material, apart from an available mind and some rainfall. Three examples are feeling the drops and their sizes on the hand or face while walking; listening to the rain falling on something (tent, umbrella, sheet of metal…); looking at the rain falling near a lamppost at night. Each experience has a simple take home message. The first one is related to the various sizes of drops, the second one to the temporal variability of rainfall, while the third one enables to notice the temporal variability of both rainfall and wind. 

The process is designed as follows. A short description of the suggested experience is given to people. Once they have implemented them, they are asked to fill a rather open/free form to report their sensations and findings. After they are given some explanations on the take home messages we originally had in mind, which does not necessarily match their own feeling. If they are interested in doing it again, they are invited to provide new sets of feedback. 

In a first step, the whole process was tested with 10-15 people with various backgrounds and who have no expertise in rainfall. Results of this preliminary implementation will be presented in this poster. They are used to tune the process, i.e. the experiences, the short description and also the explanations of the take home message. In future investigations, it will be implemented with a larger number of people to obtain more quantitative and robust results.

How to cite: Gires, A. and Dallan, E.: Increasing awareness on geophysical environment: a multi-sensory experience of rainfall, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-13449, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-13449, 2025.

Geoscience plays a vital role in shaping our sustainable future, yet the discipline is at a critical crossroads. Declining student enrolments, reduced course offerings, and the closure of university departments threaten its survival. Key challenges include public perceptions of geoscience and associated industries, its lack of visibility in school curricula, outdated branding and stereotypes, and issues related to diversity and inclusion. As students increasingly seek altruistic, sustainability-focused careers, geoscience must respond rapidly or risk further decline. A more strategic, impact-driven approach to geoscience communication is essential to address the discipline’s struggling brand image. This presentation takes you behind the scenes of the Earth Futures Festival, an international geoscience film and video festival. The festival bridges the arts and sciences to demonstrate how geoscience, combined with long-standing cultural knowledge of the Earth, offers solutions to pressing global challenges. We will explore the impact-focused approach underpinning the festival’s design, including forging value-aligned partnerships, providing communication skills training for geoscientists, and amplifying the visibility of typically underrepresented groups. This talk will provide a step-by-step practical guide to illustrate how impact-focused design can be effectively applied to geoscience communication and outreach.

How to cite: Handley, H.: An impact-driven approach to geoscience communication, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-13520, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-13520, 2025.

Podcasting about science is thriving.  In the Earth sciences alone, there are at least 15 podcasts.  How do such podcasts fit within the ecosystem of informal science education alongside museums, field trips and other resources?  Can podcasts convey the core results of present-day research without sacrificing their essence and subtlety?  Are researchers willing to make time to contribute to podcasts?  Who is listening to these podcasts and what are they seeking from them?  Does AI-enabled translation and transcription help reach listeners from hitherto less well-served geographies?  The presentation will address such questions and use examples from Geology Bites and other podcasts. 

How to cite: Strimpel, O.: Using podcasts to disseminate the essence and excitement of scientific research, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-13862, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-13862, 2025.

In the wake of disasters, storytelling can function as a means for collective sensemaking, trauma recovery, and community-centered knowledge co-production. Through the practice of listening and the medium of voice, audio stories can convey culturally specific knowledge that engages emotions while fostering dialogic thinking on complex topics. Here, we detail our experience in research and producing a public-facing audio story series about communities facing displacement and loss from water-related disasters. First, we traveled in 2023 to communities in the central Philippines devastated by 2013’s Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), one of the deadliest and strongest storms to make landfall in modern history. We conducted field interviews with Haiyan survivors and responders, local policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in the months leading up to the tenth-year commemoration of the storm. Their narratives allowed us to ground discourses about learning from disaster in mass media and academic research—discourses that we examined via a computational analysis of over 15,000 newspaper articles and 300 academic abstracts on Haiyan. The second story series explores perspectives on climate retreat in the wake of floods and increasing flood risks in New Jersey. This series centers the voices of homeowners considering property buyouts through a state program, local officials, as well as scientists who are documenting the social and physical impacts of more intense flooding and sea level rise in real time. Titled Carried by Water and produced by Princeton’s Blue Lab, these interrelated series anchor academic framings of disaster in lived experience and first-person narratives. The project does so to shed light on long-term recovery, learning processes applied to everyday decision-making, and diverse understandings of disasters, home, agency, risk, and climate resilience.

How to cite: Soriano, M., Maxwell, R., and Carruth, A.: Audio narratives of long-term disaster recovery and climate change adaptation, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-14045, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-14045, 2025.

The International Geological Congress (IGC) 2028 is returning to Canada, after an absence of over 50 years (1972, Montreal). Hosted in Calgary, Alberta, this will mark the first IGC to be held in western North America. We look forward to showcasing our “Gorgeous Geology” and “Legendary Landscapes” with the world’s geoscience community. Field trip opportunities include the Mohorovic discontinuity and glacial fjords in UNESCO World Heritage Site (UWHS) Gros Morne National Park (Newfoundland), the Carboniferous Forests at UWHS Joggins Fossil Cliffs (Nova Scotia), the Logan Line separating the Appalachians from the Grenville Province of the Canadian Shield in UWHS Quebec City (Quebec), the Cretaceous Dinosaur fossil beds at UWHS Dinosaur Provincial Park (Alberta), and evidence for the Cambrian Explosion of Life in the Burgess Shale surrounded by glaciers across the UWHS Rocky Mountain Parks (Alberta/British Columbia). Potential Indigenous cultural day trips from Calgary include Blackfoot Crossing, UWHS Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, and UWHS Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park, also known as the “Blackfoot Archives” because of the thousands of pictographs throughout the park.

Here we report on the overall communications plan, starting with phase one leading into IGC 2024 in which a powerful social media presence became the potential game-changer to connect with the target audiences such as the national and global geoscience community, as well as the general public. This connection built brand awareness while unearthing enthusiasm for the destination and program. Stage one for the social media campaign involved a recent three-month social media campaign with daily bilingual postings on Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn and YouTube. Social media was important for achieving the goals of: i) promoting Canadian geosciences, ii) highlighting the conference tagline “Geosciences for Humanity” and iii) building awareness about the Canadian bid. During IGC 2024 the social media team also promoted the events that happened at the Canadian Booth and Reception, reflecting Calgary’s renowned hospitality such as the White Hat Ceremony swearing in 30 IGC delegates as honorary Calgarians. This strategy united the international geoscience community, emphasizing the collaborative spirit that we aim to foster for IGC 2028.

The stage two of the social media (post-bid) campaign started at the end of 2024. Weekly themes promote Indigenous and geotourism offerings across Canada, with three weekly postings to showcase content. After winning the bid to host IGC 2028, interest from the local media was sparked after a press release led by the University of Calgary framing this as the “Olympics of the Geosciences”. Co-chairs Boggs and Eaton were interviewed on TV and Radio. Further press releases will follow in upcoming years to profile plenary speakers and advertise the Keynote Daily Themes (KDT) to local public schools and universities across Canada. KDTs such as “Space and Planetary Geosciences” will springboard off the Artemis II Mission which will be circumnavigating the moon in 2025 with Canadian Astronaut Jeremy Hansen onboard.

How to cite: Boggs, K., Dubois Gafar, A., Eaton, D., Navarro, L., Demorcy, J., Bley, H., Rojas Parra, J., and Carlisle, R.: Promoting Geosciences: Effective Communication Strategies for the International Geological Congress (IGC) 2028 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada., EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-14200, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-14200, 2025.

Engaging the community with geosciences has always been a big challenge for geoscientists. It has become increasingly important in the face of widespread misinformation on social media. To address this, the “Talk2Geo: Hablemos de Geociencias (Let’s talk about geoscience)” project was created to bridge the gap between geoscientists and the general public in an informal and approachable setting, where people don’t feel afraid or ashamed to asks questions.

We dropped the traditional structure of the academia and took researchers from the Universidad de Concepción away from the university, to a local restobar. There, through the course of the first semester of 2024, we organized six conservatories. Scientist were asked to present a brief introduction to their research topic in a non-scientific, everyday language. The audience was encouraged to ask questions and engage in discussions throughout the talks. These interactions often guided the development of the topics, fostering an open and dynamic dialogue. The addressed themes were stratigraphy, hydrothermal waters, volcanoes, field geology, earthquakes and landslides.

The talks had a great reception from the public, who participated actively and asked abundant questions. We compiled these questions and general topics of interest about each of the themes and presented the results to academics at the university, not only to bring sciences to the public but to also bring peoples interests to academics, hoping to have an impact in the development of future research topics.

How to cite: Cabello, C., Leal, D., and Riedel-Hornig, M.: Talk2Geo: Hablemos de Geociencias, a geoscience outreach project, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-14325, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-14325, 2025.

An Exploration of Co-creation Through the Memory of Darkness, Light, and Ice discusses a successful co-creation of a film project with sicentsits and film professionals from Europe and the US. The resulting film,The Memory of Darkness, Light, and Ice is about the science of how a long-lost sediment core reveals crucial clues about the disappearance of the Greenland Ice Sheet and global sea level rise. Scientists find the sediment from a secret sub-ice US Milirary Cold War base in the Arctic holding clues to the stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet and completely transforming our understanding of ice sheet collapse. The film was an enormous undertaking to follow the science across nine laboratories in the US and Europe and highlights some of the most remote locations in Greenland. The E&O generated not only important outreach for science, but also built on practical and theoretical research within film. The collaborative academic model built the E&O team within the science team rather than as an ad hoc external team. This approach developed an atmosphere of co-creation. During this presentation, Kasic will sceen excerpts of the film and will be availabe to discuss the combined traditional and non-traditional approaches the project took to E&O, from conception to completion. 

Here is a private link to the film in its entirety:

The Memory of Darkness, Light, and Ice

Link to trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukf54a6ZRW0

Full Film available for screening upon request.

How to cite: Kasic, K.: An Exploration of Co-creation Through the Memory of Darkness, Light, and Ice, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-14662, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-14662, 2025.

How do soil scientists perceive and experience soils? They use a wide variety of devices and tools, such as microscopes, laboratory equipment and field campaigns, and they summarize their knowledge through publications, graphs, and tables. Approaching soils with this academic perspective is likely to cause scientists to have different relationships with soils than people without soil science training. Humans have relationships with soils, and in addition to the science-based ones, these relationships can be personal, artistic, cultural, sensorial and more. Clearly, soils matter at many levels since people and communities can feel a deep connection with the soil of their homeland, as a source of identity, sustenance and a sense of place and belonging. What we proposed during the Wageningen Soil Conference 2023 was to let soil scientists discover the diversity in ways that soils can be experienced and perceived so to facilitate a positive transformation on how do we do soil science. During these event we took participants beyond the scientific perspective in an informal and relaxed space where we engaged with soils in unexpected and creative ways. Seventeen ‘stations’ were dedicated to experiencing colors, smells, tastes, textures, sounds, visuals, emotions and feelings peculiar to soils. Each station was organized by either a scientist or an artist that was present to encourage discussions, conversations and sharing of stories to inspire to experience new soil perspectives. One of the goals of this exercise was to expand (transform) the, often narrow, view of soil scientists on soils and let them discover other dimensions which can allow them to better connect with society and inspire them to share their work and knowledge about soil. This event was just the beginning of our collaboration towards experiencing soil perspectives and more events using the same or a similar format for different stakeholder groups (non-soil scientist, general public) were organized. During the conference we will share our concept, experiences and reflection with a broader group of soil scientists also reflecting about the experiences derived from the course ‘Transformative soil science’ hold in November 2024. The course was grounded in transdisciplinary perspectives from natural and social sciences and the humanities, and helped early-career scientists to understand their own perspectives on soil, and how to connect with other perspectives in an integral way of knowledge generation that contributes to meaningful transformations.

How to cite: Bongiorno, G., Stomph, D., Wiersma, W., and Student, J.: Experiencing soil perspectives – an interdisciplinary approach to transform soil science, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15176, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15176, 2025.

Soil health plays a crucial role in ecosystem functioning and is closely linked to human life. However, land and soil degradation are widespread due to environmental and anthropogenic threats. Soil knowledge is essential to address modern global challenges. Despite the important role of soils, they are often underappreciated by the general population, highlighting the need to raise soil awareness. The EU project CURIOSOIL (2024-2028, co-funded by the European Union: URL: curiosoil.eu) therefore aims at raising soil literacy and promoting a positive narrative around soils. CURIOSOIL focuses on enhancing soil literacy by triggering soil curiosity and connections between society and soil. According to the EU Mission Soil Implementation plan, soil literacy refers to both awareness about the importance of soil and practice-oriented knowledge related to achieving soil health. Soil literacy and education are crucial to environmental sustainability and the future of societies.

With this poster contribution, we seek to explore to what extent university students and scientists at EGU are willing to reflect on their own attitudes and behaviors toward soils using a participatory approach. We hypothesize that participating in discussions and reflection exercises about soil helps to increase awareness, spark curiosity, and encourage action to solve soil-related issues. We therefore invite conference participants to actively engage with us through our participatory poster. The participants are invited to answer targeted questions, write down and display their reflections directly on the poster, via post-its and/or via a digital survey. These questions are aligned with learning objectives and competences of soil literacy related to knowledge, attitudes and behavior towards soil.  All collected information will be anonymized to ensure privacy and confidentiality. To the best of our knowledge, this participatory approach is new to soil science as usually data are presented and not collected during a soil science conference. We therefore also aim to introduce the participatory poster as a research tool for data collection. Additionally, it serves as a communication instrument to encourage reflection on individual perspectives towards soil and promote an active role of raising soil awareness in society.

Specifically, our objectives are to: 1) collaboratively (the presenter and conference participants together) reflect on our knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors including emotions and habits related to soils, 2) discuss factors that influence our connection with soils (or lack thereof), 3) brainstorm on ways to create formal and informal environments that improve awareness, curiosity and learning about soils. Our findings will be used to design CURIOSOIL educational materials that will be made available for free on the project website (curiosoil.eu).

In summary, we believe that our participatory approach can enhance soil awareness, curiosity and learning. We intend to bridge the gap between society and soils to encourage careful and sustainable soil use and protect soil health. Moreover, our participatory approach is designed to engage scientists, foster multidisciplinary collaborations between social and natural scientists towards co-creation of educational materials, as well as to contribute meaningfully to natural science research.

How to cite: Huber, S., Gruselle, M.-C., Keiblinger, K., Lubbers, I., Rodrigues, S., Ugstad, H., Stolte, J., Taghizadeh Kerman, N., Bøe, F., and Fischer, F.: CURIOSOIL: Join us to raise awareness and curiosity about soils!, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15618, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15618, 2025.

Inter- and transdisciplinary projects often face the challenge of becoming scattered, due to the challenges of communication, collaboration and data integration. While co-design and close collaboration between all involved actors have been widely recommended to address congruence and representativity of all disciplines on the results and reports, inter- and transdisciplinary research often lacks platforms where these practices can be effectively carried out. The Einstein Research Unit “Climate and Water under Change” (CliWaC) investigated water-related issues in the Berlin-Brandenburg region, Germany, from diverse perspectives of more than 20 individual research groups across a wide range of disciplines - thus making it a perfect case for researching integration tools. By the end of the three-year project, we have developed a knowledge-based interactive data platform called the CliWaC Explorer, that can address the abovementioned issues and present research results and products in a coherent whole.

The CliWaC Explorer is designed as a multi-purpose tool: as a data-exploration platform for researchers studying water-related issues in the region, as a decision support tool for stakeholders and as an education and outreach tool for the wider public. One of the biggest challenges was to appeal to both a natural and a social science user base. We achieved this by allowing the users to both navigate topics spatially, as commonly done in map-based natural sciences or in a thematic plane, where project parts are organized according to their thematic relationships. The explorer has been developed with close collaboration of the project partners, and currently being further developed with a series of workshops, to be accessible by a wider user base including stakeholders and educators. We believe our platform could provide a template of how interdisciplinary research can be integrated, and how its results can be communicated to a wider audience.

How to cite: Somogyvári, M., Brill, F., Alencar, P. H. L., Fischer, J., and Sauter, T.: Integrating the results of an interdisciplinary project over social and natural sciences: the Cliwac Explorer, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-16949, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-16949, 2025.

Ecotourism and rural tourism are pivotal activities for generating substantial income, supporting rural economies, and fostering a deeper understanding of land and soil resources in various regions, particularly in inland areas. Recognizing their significance, the United Nations has included these activities in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (specifically SDG 8.9 and SDG 12), aiming for their accomplishment by 2030. While digital tourism has experienced remarkable growth recently, its focus largely remains on well-known tourist destinations.

This study highlight the potential of a geospatial decision support system (S-DSS) built on a publicly accessible, web-based geospatial cyberinfrastructure (GCI). This system offers a practical and effective tool to enhance tourism opportunities in less-visited inland areas promoting a greater appreciation of soil and land environmental resources.

The S-DSS platform is designed to facilitate the collection, management, processing, and analysis of both static (e.g., information on soil and geology) and dynamic data (e.g., climatic data). It also features advanced data visualization and on-the-fly computational tools, catering to a diverse user base that includes farmers, tourism operators, associations, and public institutions.

The S-DSS tool known as EcoSmarTour operates across the entirety of Italy, providing extensive information, including detailed soil information, to expand territorial knowledge. It supports scenario analysis, map generation, and the assessment of potential trails or ecotourism hotspots. Also, through the use of artificial intelligence, EcoSmarTour can generate text-based narratives of selected routes, tailored to the user’s preferences. This functionality enables the creation of customized storytelling for various audiences, from children and teenagers to adults and experts.

How to cite: Mileti, F. A., Tatone, M., Terribile, F., and Blazica, B.: A Smart Platform for Enhancing Soil and Land Awareness in Italy, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17396, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17396, 2025.

“In the end, we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught.” These words by forestry engineer Baba Dioum in 1968 reflect, how the relationship between people and forests has intensified over recent decades, a development that has significantly contributed to forest conservation. Unlike trees, esthetical and vital soils are rarely exposed for people to see, understand, or appreciate, making it harder to foster a connection to them.

The EU project SOILSCAPE (Spreading Open and Inclusive Literacy and Soil Culture through Artistic Practices and Education) aims to bring soils closer to the public. Alongside modern communication methods, the project places a strong emphasis on artistic approaches to promote awareness, understanding, and love for soils in their context.

In a first step towards this goal, current narratives were analyzed through a media study that examined coverage in newspapers, television, podcasts, and social networks. Thereby, the guiding questions were: What knowledge and opinions are there? Which imaginations and associations regarding soils do we find in society - and of whom? For exploring these questions, we conducted a survey using a verbal and visual questionnaire and follow-up expert interviews. Our analysis aimed at assessing dominant soil narratives and their potential impacts, and at preparing effective strategies to strengthen connections between people and soils, including cultural and artistic approaches. Thereby, we addressed societal narratives, imaginaries, and values related to soils, particularly focusing their perception and communication. The media research, questionnaire-based survey, and expert interviews were conducted in eight European countries: Bulgaria, Germany, Finland, France, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Switzerland. The study yielded almost 100 datasets from the media analysis, 435 complete responses from the visual-based questionnaire, and 24 expert interviews, providing a robust foundation for understanding how soils are perceived and how soil awareness in the European public can be more effectively enhanced.

Our results from the media research show that soils are mostly not in the focus of media, but rather treated as functional elements in discussions related to agriculture, climate change, and urbanization. People tend to perceive soils indirectly, through their use and significance in these broader contexts. Perception of soils varies widely depending on region and prior knowledge. Around 40% of participants felt that soils in their region are in poor condition, while another 40% were unsure. Primary threats to soil that were named by people included agriculture, forestry, biodiversity loss, and climate change.

These outcomes of this study point to a gap between implicit and explicit awareness of soil-related challenges. While artistic and educational approaches seem most promising in bridging this gap, the results of our study highlight the urgent need for targeted communication strategies to raise the awareness of soils and make them a topic of societal concern. Only by fostering a deeper public understanding, a stronger connection to and protection of this critical resource can be achieved.

How to cite: Sauer, D., Schwindt, D., Patzel, N., Luis Lucas, F., Raous, S., Bampa, F., Mellanen, L., and Melkas, H. and the SOILSCAPE Team: Soils in Society: Digging into Narratives and Perceptions for a Deeper Understanding, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18051, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18051, 2025.

Climate change has led to an increase in permafrost warming and thaw at global scale. Land surface changes associated with permafrost thaw include the acceleration of Arctic coastal erosion, increased thaw slumping in ice-rich regions, the drainage and formation of lakes, as well as an intensification of other disturbances, such as forest and tundra fires and droughts. Thermo-erosion threatens infrastructure and leads to gullying, slumping, and even landslides. To detect and map such permafrost disturbances at high spatial resolution across large regions and to quantify land surface change, remote sensing analyses can be applied. In the ERC PETA-CARB, ESA CCI Permafrost, and NSF Permafrost Discovery Gateway projects, a pan-arctic 20-years time series of land surface disturbance trends was produced using Landsat TM, ETM+, and OLI imagery. The dataset presents a valuable source of information for Arctic communities, planners, stakeholders, and rights holders. Arctic communities living on frozen ground are increasingly forced to adapt their livelihoods to permafrost thaw. In some areas, the relocation of settlements has become the last resort and is already actively planned for several communities in Alaska.

To make the large landscape change dataset more easily accessible to non-specialist audiences, within the EU Arctic PASSION project, we designed a new web-based portal tailored towards such audiences and the sometimes limited internet bandwidths encountered in Arctic communities. The Arctic Landscape EXplorer (ALEX, https://alex.awi.de) was launched in early 2024 and provides interactive maps displaying recent information on land surface changes, hot spots of disturbances, and potential areas of active permafrost thaw and erosion. While focusing on the local to regional scale relevant for private users, regional, and state-level decision makers, exploring the data up to the pan-arctic scale may open new avenues for understanding permafrost change for the general public. A new release of ALEX in early 2025 will provide several new features. On the portal's home page, a new section will highlight selected locations in the Arctic with extraordinary land surface changes, accompanied by contextual information. On the map, users will be able to easily compare the change data with satellite imagery and other reference maps using a swipe and fade toolbox. Sharing specific map views will also be enabled. A second story map focusing on shore erosion explains geophysical processes and the role of permafrost.

Consultations with local representatives and stakeholders in Alaska, requests from members of governmental and tribal entities to reuse our data, and inquiries from research partners in the Arctic confirm that our transfer efforts have met real needs. This positive feedback encourages us to continue updating the tool beyond the end of the Arctic PASSION project.

How to cite: Lübker, T., Nitze, I., Laboor, S., Irrgang, A., Lantuit, H., and Grosse, G.: Communicating remotely sensed pan-arctic permafrost land surface changes to non-specialist audiences with the Arctic Landscape EXplorer (ALEX), EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18409, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18409, 2025.

Climate adaptation action is increasingly both local and urgent. Reasons for including citizen and community voices in decision-making range from securing climate justice to generating more apt solutions and increasing public acceptance of interventions. More broadly, attempts to rebuild public trust in democracy and public institutions has led to a surge in citizen engagement initiatives for decision making in a whole range of subjects.

This confluence of trends has generated an ever-growing knowledge and experience base and countless publications that call for citizen engagement in climate change adaptation efforts, provide best practices for citizen engagement, and occasionally both. However, the enormous breadth of the intended audiences means that in almost all cases, these best practice guides focus on citizen engagement in general.

As part of the Adaptation AGORA project – a 3-year Mission Adaptation project that brings together researchers and practitioners from 12 institutes from across Europe – we have spent two years mapping European adaptation-related citizen engagement initiatives ( CEIs), interviewing experts across the CEI value chain and carrying out interactive workshops in attempt to identify best practices. The variety of adaptation contexts and wide range of possible (positive and negative) outcomes and impacts from CEIs pushed us beyond only looking for universal good practices to also consider those that lead to specific outcomes, like generating more just decisions, being tailored to the local settings in which they apply, promoting mutual learning, or producing improved collaboration.

We find that choices taken when designing initiatives are key to the achievement of different goals. Some general good practices can almost universally be applied, like setting a clear objective, and ensuring effective communication before, during and after the initiative. However, beyond these straightforward observations, the variety of primary and secondary objectives (awareness raising, allocating public resources, generating ideas, creating guidelines, forming long-term plans etc.) and the myriad of contextual factors (scale, scope, location, resources, familiarity with citizen engagement etc.) frustrate identifying the best practices to pursue among a surfeit of potential actions. Essentially, what is often missing from existing best-practice guides is a framework to prioritise what can be achieved with limited resources to meet the identified goals. Indeed, the relative merit of different practices in achieving different goals is well understood only by a few seasoned experts, and frequently a challenge to communicate.

Hoping to facilitate discussion and the exchange of different perspectives, we propose a serious game, Citi-Adapt, that seeks to visibilise the trade offs and push collaborative teams to collectively seek better design choices in the pursuit of different goals in unique contexts. Citi-Adapt allows us to add in different constraints, to situate CEIs in different contexts, and for different actors to walk in each other's shoes. It can be played in two ways – 1) exploring the types of resources required to achieve certain goals; and 2) identifying possible outcomes based on available resources – and we would be delighted to present it and hear your thoughts as we move to building a prototype.

How to cite: Pickard, S. and Baulenas, E.: Citi-Adapt: Communicating design decisions for citizen engagement in climate adaptation action via a serious game, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18809, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18809, 2025.

This study investigates the co-production and science communication efforts surrounding the use of storm-resolving Earth system models (SR-ESMs) to support the renewable energy transition. The models were developed under the Horizon Europe EU-funded project Next Generation of Earth System Models (NextGEMS) in the course of 3,5 years. 

By engaging in participatory workshops with stakeholders from the energy sector—including policymakers, energy providers, and civil society—we co-created scenario storylines that integrate the km-scale climate model outputs with socio-political narratives. These workshops served as a platform for dialogue, enabling the communication of complex scientific findings in a manner accessible to non-specialist audiences, and also exploring the way in which SR-ESMs can move forward to support key societal challenges such as the energy transition.

The co-production process and communication strategy were informed by exploring stakeholder perspectives and preferences, which helped design the scenarios that could be later on represented by the SR-ESMs. Specifically, the use of discourse-analytical methods helped identify key narratives that resonate with different audience segments, ensuring the models' outputs are framed in ways that address socio-environmental concerns, such as the public acceptance of renewable energy technologies.

Our communication efforts revealed several lessons: the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration, the value of iterative engagement with stakeholders, and the need for flexible strategies that adapt to evolving audience needs. These insights contribute to best practices in science communication, emphasizing the role of co-production in making scientific information actionable and impactful for policy and societal change.

How to cite: Baulenas, E., Bojovic, D., Veerman, M., Dolores-Tesillos, E., Lacima-Nadolnik, A., Haslehner, K., Kumar, A., Delgado-Torres, C., and Soret, A.: Storm-Resolving Earth System Models to Support Renewable Energy Transitions: mixing storyline methodologies to bridge science and society, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-19249, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-19249, 2025.

Soil plays a fundamental role in terrestrial ecosystems, acting as a medium for plants and other organisms while supporting all terrestrial life by providing essential conditions for growth and development. Despite its critical importance, the role of soil is often undervalued. The CURIOSOIL project aims to ignite curiosity about soils, enhance soil literacy, and foster meaningful connections between people and soil. CURIOSOIL focuses on improving soil education, addressing the pressing need for a stronger connection with soil amidst increasing human pressures on this vital resource. The project seeks to bridge gaps in soil knowledge among pupils, students, teachers, citizens, policymakers, and practitioners, thereby addressing soil illiteracy, a significant barrier to sustainable soil use. A key part of CURIOSOIL is the development of the Soil Literacy Assessment Framework (SLAF) for five target groups: primary education, secondary education, tertiary education, teachers, and lifelong learners. To achieve this, we identified the core main domains and subdomains of soil literacy in consultation with soil experts and stakeholders in soil education and lifelong learning. Four main domains have been defined: soil diversity, soil services, soil threats, and soil solutions.

This study prioritized these main domains and subdomains for designing a valid soil literacy assessment framework (SLAF) in diverse target groups. Furthermore, understanding the relative importance of these main domains (and subdomains) enables educators and policymakers to focus on the most impactful areas, ensuring that soil education efforts address the unique needs of both children and adults. By establishing these priorities, resources can be allocated efficiently, and targeted educational activities can be developed to enhance soil awareness and literacy. In this study, we employed the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to prioritize soil literacy's main domains and subdomains for SLAF. AHP is a widely recognized method that provides a systematic framework for pairwise comparisons of variables, enabling a detailed evaluation of their relative importance. Using this approach, soil experts, researchers, and educators assessed the significance of various domains for children and subdomains for adults, yielding valuable insights into the main domains and subdomains priorities.

The AHP analysis was facilitated by specialized software, such as Expert Choice. This study demonstrated its utility in designing an assessment framework and prioritizing the main domains and subdomains of soil literacy for diverse target groups. By utilizing the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) in this study, soil experts contributed valuable insights into the prioritization of soil literacy the main domains and subdomains for designing valid questionnaires. This input ensures that the resulting assessment framework and educational activities are scientifically robust and practically applicable.

Keywords: Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), CURIOSOIL, environmental education, Soil Literacy Assessment Framework (SLAF), sustainability

How to cite: Lubbers, I., Taghizadeh Kerman, N., Morias Rodrigues, S., and Noroozi, O.: Prioritizing Soil Literacy: An AHP-Based Approach, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-19274, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-19274, 2025.

The University Partnership for Atmospheric Sciences (UPAS) is a collaborative initiative among ten German universities offering Bachelor's and Master's programs in meteorology. Supported by an executive office at the University of Bonn, UPAS aims to enhance meteorological education and research in Germany by focusing on four key areas:

• Attracting qualified students
• Providing excellent education
• Fostering synergies for successful science
• Engaging in societal and community outreach

A significant component of UPAS is its dedication to advancing science communication and public engagement within meteorology. This commitment is exemplified through initiatives such as MeteoXchange, an international network fostering professional growth among early-career scientists via annual virtual conferences and specialized workshops designed to enhance presentation and communication skills. Additional efforts include interactive science slamming workshops, hands-on climate change experiment demonstrations for classrooms across Germany, the development of a dedicated podcast, and the creation of high-quality Open Educational Resources (OER). These activities not only elevate internal training but also bridge the gap between scientific research and societal understanding, amplifying the impact of meteorology on diverse audiences.

This presentation will highlight UPAS's achievements, providing an overview of our approaches to enhance education, research and outreach in meteorology. We will also discuss challenges encountered and share lessons learned, including strategies for overcoming hurdles and successfully leveraging synergies among our partner institutions. We are more than keen to invite collaboration and idea exchange with other geoscientific networks sharing similar objectives, in particular on the international level.

How to cite: Thiele-Eich, I., Arimond, E., and Uebachs, A.: University Partnership for Armospheric Sciences (UPAS): a joint effort in communicating meteorology , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-20089, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-20089, 2025.

Scientific research is often inaccessible to non-academic audiences, even when it is publicly funded or conducted in their local area. Bridging this gap is essential to promote public understanding and inspire future geoscientists.

This study presents a small-scale science communication project developed as part of a Master's thesis and implemented in a rural Austrian community within the Hohe Tauern National Park. The initiative involved two local school classes and the general public through interactive activities and workshops. An open lecture on regional geology, given by young scientists from the University of Innsbruck, introduced the project to the wider community. The following day, school classes took part in field workshops led by scientists and National Park rangers on topics such as regional geology, tectonics, ore mining, geoarchaeology, alpine farming and local fauna. Hands-on, outdoor activities proved to be an effective and easy-to-implement tool for geoscience engagement and received positive feedback during this project.

Feedback indicated an increased interest and understanding of geoscience topics among participants. This study highlights how small-scale, low-cost projects can effectively engage local communities and stimulate interest in geoscience. Such efforts are critical to making science communication accessible and replicable for future researchers.

How to cite: Gatt, T., Sieberer, A.-K., Westreicher, F., Mattersberger, M., and Zeiner, S.: Communicating geoscience to the public: insights from an early career scientist, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-20316, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-20316, 2025.

Tales from Mednight – Junior Edition is an enchanting collection of stories created to inspire children under 12 with the wonders of Mediterranean science. This one-of-a-kind anthology showcases the winning entries from the IV Literary Contest “Tales from Mednight,” a transnational initiative celebrating the fusion of creativity and science.

The stories explore themes such as biodiversity, clean energy, Mediterranean history, and environmental stewardship, sparking curiosity and fostering a love for science among young readers. Written in seven languages—Arabic, English, French, Greek, Italian, Spanish, and Turkish—the winning tales embody the Mediterranean's rich cultural diversity and shared scientific legacy.

To celebrate the launch of the Junior Edition, the Mednight initiative is distributing printed copies to children in hospitals, primary schools, and refugee camps. Free digital copies are also available, ensuring that the inspiring world of Mediterranean science reaches young readers everywhere.

How to cite: Krouma, M. and the Mednight team: Tales from Mednight – Junior Edition: Inspiring Young Minds with Mediterranean Science, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-20455, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-20455, 2025.

How to cite: von Szombathely, M., Reif, A., Poschlod, B., Blanz, B., Borchert, L., Brunner, L., and Sillmann, J.: The communicative power of climate extremes , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-21677, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-21677, 2025.

Fieldwork is an essential component of geoscience education. However, challenges such as weather, safety concerns, logistical and accessibility problems can impact the overall experience. This study explores the use of Virtual Field Trips (VFTs) to enhance students’ learning experience before, during, and after fieldwork, and in some cases, replacing physical fieldwork. The research was conducted in the alpine region of Finse, Norway, a popular fieldwork destination for several geoscience courses at Norwegian universities.

The VFTs were created using drone-captured photospheres and Digital Outcrop Models, offering immersive simulations of the field environment. Data on the educational potential was collected from students and teaching staff who tried out the VFT outside of a course context. Pre-fieldwork questionnaires were used to gather student expectations, followed by interviews with the same group after some of them used the VFT in the field. The study makes use of the theory of Novelty Space to explore the potential of VFTs; by reducing student uncertainty in areas not related to fieldwork (cognitive, social, psychological and geographical), the students can focus on the educational elements of the fieldtrip.

The VFTs were seen as a potentially valuable tool for preparing for fieldwork by helping students visualize the site and identify areas of interest. VFTs were also considered useful for post-fieldwork activities, such as report preparation and presentations, and were recognized for enhancing inclusivity by providing virtual access to field sites for students who cannot participate in physical fieldwork.

In a field course, students expressed excitement about the upcoming fieldwork, describing it as "exciting" and "interesting," though many also reported feeling "nervous" and "stressed," particularly about missing other courses and the challenging conditions of the field location. Social aspects, such as working in groups with their classmates and establishing good working relationships with teachers, were a common concern. The VFT is particularly useful to address cognitive and geographical concerns prior to fieldwork, and afterwards, students who did not take appropriate photos, or record observations during the field trip, used the VFT post-fieldwork for their projects. Moreover, students who used the VFT as a substitute for fieldwork found that, despite not being physically present, they were able to engage in group discussions and contribute to report writing.

This research highlights the potential of VFTs to overcome barriers in geoscience fieldwork, enhancing accessibility and engagement. The positive feedback indicates that VFTs can enhance preparedness, serve as a supplement or substitute for fieldwork, and support post-fieldwork activities. Additionally, VFTs offer opportunities for knowledge exchange between institutions, enabling broader access to fieldwork experiences. Future work will refine VFT design and explore their use in diverse educational settings based on the users’ feedback.

How to cite: Theodoropoulos, E., Lundmark, A. M., Dunnett, K., Kenji Horota, R., and Staalesen Lilleøren, K.: Virtual Field Trips: Enhancing learning before, during, and post-fieldwork, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-1047, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-1047, 2025.

How to cite: Schlegel, R. and Zuhr, A. M.: Beyond the Bathroom: Hygiene and Comfort (for Women) in Polar Regions, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-1222, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-1222, 2025.

Passive dust traps were installed in summer of 2024 at the Kobbefjord Research station in west Greenland (64°08’ N, 51°23’ W) to capture local and long-range transported dust. The installation included three different types of dust traps for wet and dry deposition as well as vertical flow, following the standard methods for wind erosion research and model development by Webb et al., USA. The Kobbefjord Research station belongs to the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources (GINR). 

Planning and preparations for the installations were carried out with the essential help from the station manager (KR). Materials that could be interesting for the Arctic foxes that live in the station area, e.g., rubber and plastics, needed to be avoided. Also any material that would collect insects rather than aeolian dust, e.g. sticky pads, were advised to be avoided. To ensure the installation materials arrived in time in Greenland, our visiting team (OM and LT) transported everything as personal luggage from Finland to Greenland. There, the research station could be reached only by boat, weather allowing, since there are no roads to the station.

The dust traps were installed by the visiting team on 14 August and they collected dust until the end of September 2024. During the visit, stream samples were also collected and quartz filters for further laboratory analysis (e.g., dust and Black Carbon) at the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) were prepared. At the time of the visit, there was no snow close to the station, but snow on glaciers and mountain tops up to 1300 m could be observed. The snow surfaces were observed to have visible amounts of light-absorbing impurities, most likely due to local dust.

OM and LT gratefully acknowledge H2020 EU INTERACT DUST project (no. 871120).

How to cite: Meinander, O., Thölix, L., and Raundrup, K.: Planning and conducting a field campaign in west Greenland to capture local and long-range transported aeolian dust, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-3994, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-3994, 2025.

South Africa hosts a great many geohistorical sites such as the Vredefort Dome impact structure¹, greenstones and stromatolites of the Barberton Mountains², turbidity sequences of the Tanqua Karoo³, and the Sea Point Contact (visited by Charles Darwin in 1836)⁴. Together they preserve the history of continents and the evolution of life (e.g. the “Cradle of Humankind” in the Sterkfontein Caves)¹. Therefore, South Africa is a geotourism and geo-educational hotspot. However, construction, vandalism, sea-level rise and land-use changes threaten many important outcrops, both in South Africa and worldwide⁵.

To address this, several platforms and initiatives such as Geodyssey (SA)⁶, iGeology (UK), European Geoparks Network (Europe), and GeoTourist (worldwide) have been developed to document specific outcrops for preservation, geotourism, and/or educational purposes. Our team at the University of the Western Cape has used this framework to develop virtual geological tours (VTs) of key Cape Granite, Cape, and Karoo Supergroup outcrops to: 1) add visual material to Geodyssey; 2) create Google Earth-hosted geotourism-focused tours; and 3) build longer, more comprehensive VTs with high resolution imagery, narrated video-links, 3D scans, and scientific references to allow professionals to visually access sites and to prepare students for in-person field trips. The educational efficacy of the latter has been proven with statistical analyses that show significant positive impacts that increase with target population education levels⁷.

Thus far, we have built easily navigable, interactive VTs using a Canon R5 camera (with various lenses and a Syrp Genie II Pan Tilt mechanical camera head), Canon XA 40 camcorder, Insta 360 X-one camera, DJI Mavic 3 Pro Cine drone and an Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max in combination with purchased software packages such as PTGui^©, Agisoft Metashape^© and Pano2VR^© along with freeware/hosting platforms including 3D Scanner (LiDAR), Handbrake, Blender, CapCut, Microsoft Clipchamp, YouTube, Sketchfab, and the web-based version of Google Earth. Although we have used the above expensive equipment and licensed software, freeware such as HitFilm Free, HugIn and Marzipano are available, which may achieve compatible results.

In conclusion, our latest results demonstrate that anyone can create VTs with a good mobile phone with LiDAR capability and a high resolution camera (45 megapixel or more) such as an Apple iPhone 15 or 16 pro, without having to lug heavy backpacks with bulky and expensive camera equipment into the field as we will demonstrate by showing some results.

References:

1) Allen, N. et al. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JE007186

2) Tice, M.M. et al. (2004). https://doi.org/10.1130/G19915.1

3) Wickens, H.D., Bouma, A.H. (2000). https://archives.datapages.com/data/specpubs/memoir72/ch14/mem72ch14.htm

4) Bailie, R.H. et al. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1144/SP543-2022-237

5) Helm, C.W. et al. (2024). https://koedoe.co.za/index.php/koedoe/article/view/1786/3381

6) Geological Society of South Africa (2024). https://www.gssawc.org.za/geodyssey

7) Van Bever Donker, J.M. et al. (2024). https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-18133

How to cite: van Bever Donker, J., Cilliers, C., and Huber, M.: Fieldwork education and the use of Virtual Geological Tours, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-4173, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-4173, 2025.

At EGU  2024 the Gorgoneion Collective introduced the project addressing " Gear Hack for women:  Polar Gear Revisited for Female Friendly Field Operations".  

The project market research opened up a wider dialogue around women in Antarctica. These sessions have created a small community and we hope to create discussions to improve working conditions for women in the polar regions.
We drew our first prototypes that were tested in Antarctica. The drawings brought together innovations but also symbolic elements to give a homage to people who live in extreme and hostile environments.

We went to visit two factories that we partnered with Inter plume, Getex and met REAL STAAM. Our approach incorporates eco-responsibility and these three companies are the perfect embodiment of shared values.

 We have been working on testing a Prototype with 

• A company in Chamonix which designed the basic forms for the fieldwork clothing
• a company in France run entirely by women,  for the production of the prototype
• A company in France run entirely in a sustainable way for the production of the duck feathers used in the clothing
• A company in France that produced the merino underclothing that would go under the field clothing.
• The International Polar Foundation which operates the Belgian Station Princess Elisabeth Antarctica
• Partius in Belgium that helps with the Project Management
• Scientists from the Netherlands who tested the clothing and gave their feedback

The prototypes were tested in the deep field by scientists from the project FROID who worked on the Antarctic plateau at temperatures going to -45°C.

At EGU 2025 we will give a report on the prototypes and how well they functioned and what modifications will be necessary in order to produce improved versions for the next testing season.  We will then select a researcher who will be working in the deep field to test the new prototypes in 2025-26 before making these available to a wider community in the season 2026-27.

The Gorgoneion Collective can be followed on the following platforms: Instagram, Linked In

How to cite: Johnson-Amin, N. and Johnson, L. N.: Gear Hack for Women – Field Testing of Prototype , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-4272, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-4272, 2025.

Virtual field trips (VFTs) have gained considerable importance for education in recent years (Friess et al. 2016, Stainsfield et al. 2000), offering innovative approaches to teaching and learning in higher education and beyond.The presentation will entail different approaches to implementing VFTs in higher education including teacher training and highlights the learning opportunities. The main ways to create a virtual field trip based on digital maps are presented. There are two basic variations of application: First, utilizing existing VFTs, which are available for numerous geoscience topics and places. Second, enabling students to create their own VFT or digital map based on obtained or existing data. A range of tools with varying levels of complexity can be employed for this purpose (Leininger-Frézal & Sprenger, 2022). Selected case studies will be used to show how virtual environments can be developed to explore spatial themes in different places. In addition, first empirical evidence is presented (Leininger-Frézal & Sprenger, 2022) that depicts learning opportunities in VFTs from the perspective of students. The results show that these are seen particularly in the accessibility of places and to promote inclusion. Limitations arise from the perspective of students due to the fact that no direct real experience is possible or also due to inadequate technical equipment. The experiences and results from three virtual field trip projects (Virt-Ex (Leininger-Frézal & Sprenger, 2022), V-Global, and V-GeoSciEd)) will be presented in order to highlight opportunities and challenges for teaching and learning in Higher Education.

Friess, Daniel A., Grahame J. H. Oliver, Michelle S. Y. Quak, and Annie Y. A. Lau. 2016. “Incorporating ‘Virtual’ and ‘Real World’ Field Trips into Introductory Geography Modules.” Journal of Geography in Higher Education 40 (4): 546–564. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2016.1174818.

Leininger-Frézal, Caroline, and Sandra Sprenger. 2022. “Virtual Field Trips in Binational Collaborative Teacher Training: Opportunities and Challenges in the Context of Education for Sustainable Development.” Sustainability 14, 12933. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141912933.

Stainfield, John, Peter Fisher, Bob Ford, and Michael Solem. 2000. “International Virtual Field Trips: A New Direction?” Journal of Geography in Higher Education 24 (2): 255–262. https://doi.org/10.1080/713677387.

How to cite: Sprenger, S., Leininger-Frézal, C., and Heidari, N.: Virtual Field Trips (VFT) - Approaches and Learning Opportunities for Higher Education , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6418, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6418, 2025.

Fieldwork in polar and cryospheric research involves working as a team in a hazardous environment. We developed a residential field course, “CryoSkills”, which ran in Norway in April 2024, with 20 early-career scientists. One of the course objectives was to familiarise the participants with the reality of working in a cold, snow-covered environment, and for the instructor team to model and promote good practice in cryospheric fieldwork. In this presentation we will describe our approach to fieldwork and how, though a mixture of formal teaching, mentoring, and groupwork, we successfully conveyed this approach to our early-career participants. Extensive preparation and planning, including a pilot course, meant that the instructor team were able to create a supportive environment and model good practice in teamwork to the participants.

After the course, several participants who went on to do fieldwork later in the season and told us how much their learning on the course had helped them deal with difficult situations, and we will share some of these experiences.

How to cite: Prior-Jones, M., Bagshaw, E., Craw, L., Doyle, S., Filhol, S., Fisher, E., Frater, D., Hawkins, J., van der Laan, L., Smith, E. C., and Young, T. J.: Sharing good cryospheric fieldwork practice with the next generation of scientists, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11157, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11157, 2025.

Inspiring Girls Expeditions (IGE)* is a transformative wilderness science education program designed to empower young women through immersive, hands-on experiences in the natural world. With a focus on fields traditionally underrepresented by women, such as glaciology and mountaineering, IGE fosters leadership, self-confidence, and teamwork while promoting scientific inquiry and artistic expression.

Girls on Ice Austria*, one of the most recent additions to the IGE network, offers a ten-day expedition in the Ötztal Alps, where participants, aged 15-17, engage in scientific research, mountaineering, and artistic projects. These all-female expeditions aim to break down barriers for underrepresented genders in science and outdoor activities by providing a supportive and inclusive environment. Female scientists, artists, and mountain guides lead the expeditions, offering mentorship and expertise while encouraging participants to push their physical and intellectual boundaries.

During the expedition, participants learn basic mountaineering skills (e.g., knot tying and crevasse rescue), conduct scientific experiments, and engage in creative activities such as painting and sketching the alpine landscape. These activities are designed not only to introduce participants to the scientific method but also to help them develop a deeper connection to nature and strengthen their personal resilience. Importantly, the program is tuition-free, removing financial barriers to participation and opening doors for those who might not otherwise have access. Such opportunities can serve as preparatory experiences for subsequent scientific fieldwork.

Here, we present the methods used to foster inclusion and teach participants with a low or mixed experience level how to operate in the field environment. Specific approaches include: (1) clear explanation of expectations for each activity (duration, planning, breaks, etc.); (2) dedicated timeslots for mentor and peer-to-peer guidance on everything from packing a bag to using the toilet; (3) ad hoc mentor and peer-to-peer advice on walking efficiently, coping with fuel and hydration issues, and managing body temperature and the elements (e.g., how not to get wet, and why); (4) formal safety training for critical activities such as glacier travel and crevasse rescue, emphasizing the need to establish a common group approach and communication strategy; (5) encouragement to voice individual needs and discuss how they can be met alongside team needs and goals; and (6) regular check-ins and feedback opportunities.

We discuss how such programs and the tactics deployed within them can be leveraged to increase diversity in scientific leadership, provide hands-on learning experiences, and inspire and equip the next generation of young women to pursue careers in geoscience and beyond.

How to cite: Bertolotti, G., Nicholson, L., Reppert, V., Staudinger, I., and Schlamon, F. and the Girls* on Ice Austria (austria@inspiringgirls.org): Girls* on Ice Austria: strategies for inclusive approaches to field experiences, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12789, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12789, 2025.

Fieldwork is inevitably place based and raises the question of how local communities are engaged. We have been working to create venues for communicating research that has addressed community priorities, and that support co-creation with local communities. We will highlight the Community Science Exchange (CSE), a collaboration by a coalition of partner societies. The CSE launched to elevate, share, and expand the reach of science performed by, for, and with communities through the journal Community Science as well as the Hub, designed for sharing various outputs of community science. We will also discuss AGU Publications’ policies aimed at improving transparency and equity for research collaborations in resource-limited settings.

How to cite: Giampoala, M., Schuette, A., Vrouwenvelder, K., Dedej, S., and Ricci, M.: Centering Community: How Scientific Publishers Can Promote Inclusive Research Practices, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12932, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12932, 2025.

Fieldwork is an essential part of geoscience training. It teaches spatial reasoning, teamwork, and organizational skills while requiring integration of diverse observations and iterative hypothesis testing. Successful field campaigns demand critical thinking, problem-solving, and adaptability—skills that many students find challenging, particularly when faced with open-ended tasks that lack “correct answers.” Moreover, physical fieldwork can also be exclusionary, particularly for students with health or mental impairments, lower socioeconomic status, or inflexible family obligations that limit their ability to enter the field. To address these barriers, we need inclusive and innovative methods to teach transferable field skills to all students, regardless of their ability to participate in physical fieldwork. Interactive Virtual Field Trips (iVFTs) offer a promising solution by enabling students to explore spatially integrated, data-rich environments and “visit” inaccessible sites at their own pace with fewer external stressors.

We present an iVFT to the Mont Albert ophiolite complex (Québec, Canada), designed to train and assess students in field preparation and critical thinking in an accessible, inclusive setting. We built the iVFT as a “choose your own adventure", challenge-based virtual environment that provides a structured yet flexible framework for cultivating field skills such as strategic planning, data integration, and decision-making in dynamic scenarios. The environment integrates desktop virtual reality with an option of VR/AR compatible glasses for full immersion. To prepare for the 'field' activity, we instruct students to plan an initial field campaign justified by their chosen research problem and terrane accessibility inferred from a topographic map, and "pack a backpack" based on logistical constraints (including weight estimates). Students then enter the virtual environment and test the validity and flexibility of their field plans by making real-time decisions about site selection (i.e., what outcrops to study in detail, and why) and sampling strategies (i.e., what samples to 'collect,' and how much they weigh). The “choose your own adventure” framework allows for embedding unexpected challenges related to weather, health and safety, and active decisions of how and where to spend time. Students keep “field notebooks” to document observations, evolving hypotheses, and modifications to original field plans. During the exercise, we encourage metacognition by guiding student articulation of reasons behind decision making, responses to unexpected challenges, and strengths and weaknesses of original field plans. After the exercise, we captured this cognitive growth through post-activity written reflections. 

Preliminary assessments using pre- and post-surveys and student products, including narrative reflections, indicate that this approach enhances students’ confidence in tackling complex, open-ended problems while fostering skills critical to real-world fieldwork. Leveraging iVFTs as fieldwork preparation tools has the potential to impact geoscience education by providing students with a safe, accessible, and effective platform to develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and field planning skills. Such skills are transferable both to in-person field experiences, and more broadly, to complex problem-solving.

How to cite: Kotowski, A. and van Vuuren, N.: Cultivating Fieldwork Skills Through a “Choose Your Own Adventure” Interactive Virtual Field Trip, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-13672, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-13672, 2025.

The Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) is Australia's land observatory. With a network of 1000, 1-ha plots across the nation, TERN has over 10 years of experience developing standardised monitoring protocols and implementing on-ground field surveys across Australia's unique environments.

With a dedicated team of experienced ecologists, including plant and soil specialists, students and volunteers, operating independently, camping in remote locations for ~12 days, research infrastructure is created through a suite of standardised, repeatable monitoring methods. Site location, soil, landscape and environmental attributes, vegetation community and floristics data are collected. Herbaria specimens, leaf tissue samples, soil samples, and metagenomic samples are collected for a national repository and freely accessible to the international research community.

Aside from the research data created, TERN has developed best practices for managing field teams who conduct remote fieldwork in challenging environments, including safety and communication procedures, scientific permitting approvals, and biosecurity procedures for transporting samples across jurisdictions. 

Building on TERN's experience, the Ecological Monitoring System of Australia (EMSA) was created in collaboration with the Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW). EMSA provides the tooling for natural resource management (NRM) practitioners and ecologists to expand Australia's network, with plot-based monitoring specifically designed to test the effectiveness of NRM investment projects.

EMSA provides on-ground practitioners with a modular suite of standardised survey protocols, comprehensive instruction manuals, a field data collection app, and a centralised data management and storage system for the Australian Government's Biodiversity Data Repository. Support is provided via a help desk, a community of practice with monthly information sessions and opportunities for questions, discussions and shared learning. Multi-day on-ground training programs and outreach activities upskill ecologists from regional delivery partner organisations and contractors. The modular approach encourages and allows project managers to consider their specific project needs when designing the monitoring program. The ongoing learning opportunities and the repeatability of the methods enable ecologists and field practitioners, once experienced in the techniques, to take up job opportunities across the country, applying the skills to different ecosystems.

How to cite: O'Neill, S., Irvine, K., Kilpatrick, E., Tokmakoff, A., Derby, L., Leedman, A., DeChazal, J., Cook, A., and Sparrow, B.: Fieldwork for the collection of ecological monitoring data – learnings from creating research infrastructure in Australia, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-13919, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-13919, 2025.

How to cite: Oikarinen, T., Salovaara, J. J., and Lauri, K. A.: Piloting a course model for blended multisite field course, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17745, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17745, 2025.

Fieldwork is the cornerstone of geoscience education. But what kind of work?

Since the late 1990s, has the rise of digital technologies altered its role?

Geologists are increasingly confronted to data that are less and less rooted in their original contexts, raising questions about their validity, critical assessment, and realism of models. It is therefore essential to develop the ability to connect field observations with data processing, fostering the ability to discern which elements must be quantified or qualitatively integrated into databases.

At UniLaSalle, field observation is a pillar of geosciences training. To complement digital advancements, we have embedded it into a continuous, structured pedagogical framework throughout the five years of engineering training (three years for technician training). This "spine" includes a minimum of 18 weeks spread across 10 field camps, allowing students to acquire scientific expertise, geological skills, as well as interpersonal and professional values and skills.

During the first three years, the educational skills focus on analyzing various dimensions (e.g., mineralogy, paleontology, petrology, sedimentology, structural geology...), observing, mapping, characterizing objects methodically, deducing processes and their interrelations, estimating their relative importance, and creating a cartographic or 3D block model as a basis for all future applications.

The chosen field locations cover a wide variety of geological contexts, broadening skills and enabling adaptation to the specificities of each domain. Students gradually progress from interpreting maps to creating them, and by their third year, they produce a "Research Initiation Report."

Over time, students take on managerial responsibilities, including mission management, educational supervision, group safety, data verification, and the development of data acquisition methodologies.

In the master's program, two complementary objectives are emphasized:

• Developing critical distance regarding data quality:M1 students supervise undergraduate students. They must create a map using data collected by undergraduate students. This experience enhances their understanding of data quality, biases, and methodological rigor.
• Integrating multidisciplinary data (log data, geochemical, geophysical, etc.) into cartographic analysis. Cross-referencing and coherence analysis help to verify various hypotheses and encourage reflection on the critical and effective use of collected data depending on the practical problem at hand (environment, energy, materials, etc.). This requires methodological support for scientific approaches.

By establishing the conditions for effective "learning by doing" and "peer tutoring," the structure of the 10 field camps allows students to consolidate their learning through spontaneous questioning and regulation that virtual methods cannot replicate. Similarly, the variety of roles and positions strengthens their understanding and mastery of skills. Lastly, group work fosters inclusion, requiring everyone to collaborate with peers from diverse approaches and cultures.

This level of autonomy, confidence, and competence allows students to see themselves as scientists and professionals, contributing to the success of UniLaSalle teams in various international competitions. Fieldwork remains the ultimate reference in our professions: validation through the field is nearly incontestable—a reality that speaks for itself.

How to cite: Ottavi Pupier, E., Leyrit, H., and Ottavi, S.: The Field: An Essential Foundation for Geologist Training in the Digital Era, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18098, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18098, 2025.

Fieldwork is a vital component of geoscience research, providing unique opportunities for data collection, hands-on learning, and team collaboration. While discussions on fieldwork often center around challenges—such as exclusion, harassment, and inequality—it’s equally important to highlight positive experiences and the factors that contribute to them.

I aim to share my personal experiences as an early-career scientist of how respect, trust and inclusion in my teams on various occasions fostered productive and empowering environments. From short field trips in Austria to organizing an international field campaign in Bolivia and managing logistical efforts for a month-long expedition in Greenland, I have consistently felt valued as an equal contributor, regardless of my career stage. I will discuss key practices that made these experiences successful: encouraging early-career researchers to take on responsibilities, fostering open communication, and promoting shared decision-making. These approaches not only helped build my confidence but also contributed to the overall success of the field campaigns.

By sharing lessons learned from these experiences, this contribution aims to suggest practical strategies for building positive and inclusive fieldwork environments. While it is essential to acknowledge and address the difficulties some face, presenting successful examples can inspire teams to create a culture of mutual respect and trust. This perspective encourages reflection on how we can collectively ensure that fieldwork remains a safe, supportive, and enriching experience for all.

How to cite: Schroeder, M., Prinz, R., Abermann, J., and Steiner, J.: Empowering Fieldwork: A Positive Perspective on Respect, Inclusion, and Responsibility, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18532, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18532, 2025.

Fieldwork didactics and education for sustainable development (ESD) are integral components of geography teacher training. However, these subjects are often taught separately. Fieldwork in nature provides a wide range of opportunities for experiencing nature, and Nature Bildung is regarded as a central concept in ESD. Moreover, research highlights that a connection to nature is a significant factor in promoting sustainable and responsible actions (Grund & Brock, 2020; Mayer & Frantz, 2004; Roczen, 2011).

We will present a collaborative project between the University of Education Ludwigsburg and University College Copenhagen, exploring how Nature Bildung theory and geographical fieldwork didactics can be combined to enhance Nature Bildung through fieldwork courses in teacher education. As part of the project, five student groups each designed a three-hour fieldwork assignment in the UNESCO Geopark Odsherred. These assignments were developed based on pedagogical and didactical theories, with students tasked to select field trip locations that aligned with their conceptual frameworks.

The project was evaluated to address the question of how geographical fieldwork can be conceptualized in teacher education to foster Nature Bildung through a double-didactic approach. Data for the evaluation includes a questionnaire, observation field notes, student-designed materials, and group interviews conducted post-project.

In our presentation, we will share key findings from the study and discuss their implications for teacher training programs and ESD.

Grund, J., & Brock, A. (2022). Formal Bildung in times of crises: The role of sustainability in schools, vocational education, and universities. Institut Futur, Freie Universität Berlin. Available at https://www.bne-portal.de/bne/shareddocs/downloads/publikationen/FU-Monitoring/fu-monitoring-formale-bildung-in-zeiten-von-krisen.pdf (14.01.2025).

Mayer, F. S., & Frantz, C. M. (2004). The connectedness to nature scale: A measure of individuals’ feeling in community with nature. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 24(4), 503–515. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2004.10.001

Roczen, N. (2011). Environmental competence – the interplay between connection with nature and environmental knowledge in promoting ecological behavior (dissertation). Eindhoven University of Technology.

How to cite: Conrad, D., Heidemann Langhoff, J., Vocilka, A., and Wejdling, T.: Combining Geographic Field Trips and Nature Bildung: A Dual Approach in Danish and German Teacher Training, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-19771, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-19771, 2025.

Cata de Ciencia: Bridging the Gender Gap in STEM Through Community Engagement and Visibility

The persistent gender gap in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) has hindered diversity and innovation for decades. Women and girls are consistently underrepresented in these fields, limiting their career trajectories and obstructing the development of inclusive, diverse solutions for global challenges. Increasing the visibility of female role models has been identified as a critical strategy to address this disparity (e.g. Carter et al., 2018; Halili & Martin, 2019). However, studies show that women in STEM are often more vulnerable to stereotypes and biases, particularly when presenting their work in public forums (e.g. Carter et al., 2018; McKinnon & O’Connell, 2020). Cata de Ciencia aims to foster a supportive environment to promote women in STEM by showcasing their achievements and engaging a diverse local audience. This initiative combines public science communication with gender equity goals. Monthly events held in Segovia, Spain, feature presentations by local women scientists, followed by interactive discussions with the audience in an informal setting accompanied by wine and tapas. The format promotes accessibility, relatability, and inclusivity, addressing the stereotype that scientific excellence is exclusive to men or specific cultures (Carter et al., 2018; McKinnon & O’Connell, 2020). The project pursues two main objectives: increasing the visibility of women in STEM within the region of Castilla y León and promoting the dissemination of science to the public in a welcoming, interactive format. 

References
Carter, A. J., Croft, A., Lukas, D., & Sandstrom, G. M. (2018). Women’s visibility in academic seminars: Women ask fewer questions than men. PloS one, 13(9), e0202743.
Halili, M. A., & Martin, J. L. (2019). How to Make the Invisible Women of STEM Visible. Australian Journal of Chemistry, 73(3), 75-77.
McKinnon, M., & O’Connell, C. (2020). Perceptions of stereotypes applied to women who publicly communicate their STEM work. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 7(1).

How to cite: Huguet, C. and Polanco Palomar, S.: Cata de Ciencia: Bridging the Gender Gap in STEM Through Community Engagement and Visibility, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-1469, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-1469, 2025.

STEM fields in Europe and across the globe are not balanced in terms of gender, ethnic and racial groups, sexual orientation and other aspects of diversity (e.g. Fry et al. 2021, Freeman 2018). For example, in 2018, women made up over 40% of European academic staff, but in 2019 only 26.2% of full professors were women, less than 25% were heads of institutes, and only 31.1% board members (EC She figures 2021). This under-representation has caused academic institutions to implement new hiring practices, unconscious bias training, and intervention programs (e.g. Palid et al. 2023), as science and innovation thrive on diversity in expertise and experience. However, diversity varies across fields, and understanding field specific data is critical to propose and evaluate effective measures. Here, we wish to look inward and assess our own scientific discipline of computational geodynamics. We specifically use a recurring international conference in our field—now called the Ada Lovelace Workshop on Modelling Mantle and Lithosphere Dynamics—as a proxy for our field. This conference series has taken place in various European countries at a roughly two-year interval since 1987. 

For all listed attendees, we have collected gender, year of highest degree obtained, primary country and institute of affiliation at the time of the conference, presentation type and organisational role in the conference based on information available online, such as the workshop program booklets and institute, ORCID, Google Scholar and social media profiles. Using this dataset, we analysed the diversity in gender, career stage and country of affiliation of each conference overall, of the local and science organization committees and of the invited speakers. Based on the available data, we cannot make any inferences about other aspects of diversity. 

We show that over the last 38 years, the participation of women has increased from about 10% to about 35%. The percentage of women attendees has increased across all career stages, but fluctuates for established scientists. The number of invited woman speakers has also increased: whereas between 2000 and 2010, three out of the five conferences did not have any woman invitee, from 2015 to 2024, consistently more than 25% of the invited speakers were women. The number of primary countries of affiliation has approximately doubled over three decades. As expected, the majority of attendees work in Europe and a substantial fraction of participants is from North America, but contributions from scientists in Asia and Africa have increased. Given the rate over the last four decades, we project that gender equality in participants will be reached in 2040.

European Commission RTD, She figures 2021—Gender in research and innovation: Statistics and indicators, 2021, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/06090.

Freeman, J. (2018). LGBTQ scientists are still left out. Nature 559, 27-28.

Fry, R., Kennedy, B., & Funk, C. (2021). STEM jobs see uneven progress in increasing gender, racial and ethnic diversity. Pew Research Center, 1.

Palid, O., Cashdollar, S., Deangelo, S., Chu, C., & Bates, M. (2023). Inclusion in practice: A systematic review of diversity-focused STEM programming in the United States. Int. J. STEM Educ., 10(1), 2.

How to cite: Dannberg, J., van Zelst, I., Glerum, A., Pusok, A., Crameri, F., and Thieulot, C.: The evolving diversity of the geodynamics community: Ada Lovelace workshop participants from 1987 to 2024, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-5760, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-5760, 2025.

Autism is a lifelong developmental condition which impacts how individuals communicate and interact with the world around them and is simultaneously recognised broadly as a form of neurodivergence and protected legally as a disability (e.g. U.K. Equality Act 2010). Autism frequently remains under-represented and un-disclosed in academia, despite it having no impact on intelligence. In fact, many autistic traits such as problem-solving skills and thinking ‘outside the box’ should be conducive to success in academia.

The field of Geoscience is currently facing significant scrutiny for a lack of diversity. This study contributes to this by investigating the experiences of geoscience students in U.K. higher education, using a novel qualitative methodology designed to be inclusive for autistic participants. Forty self-identified autistic geoscience students took part in semi-structured asynchronous discussions over a period of one month, sharing their self-perceptions, experiences of learning in geoscience, university life, support in higher education, and other issues that they wished to discuss.

Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, generating three themes: (1) Being me; (2) Interacting with the world around me; (3) Facilitating change. Participants stressed the need to recognise the diversity of autistic experiences, and suggested a number of recommendations that would improve their learning and wider higher education experiences, including training to enhance the fundamental understanding of autistic people. The outcomes of this study can help provide actionable recommendations for educators and institutions to better address the challenges faced by autistic learners. This will ultimately facilitate better inclusivity in geoscience-based higher education and lead to improved success and well-being for autistic people in the geosciences.

How to cite: Jeffery, A., Rogers, S., Jeffery, K., Lucherini, M., Hulme, J., Griffin, M., Derbyshire, E., Wisniewski, K., Pringle, J., Hallam, C., Stemp, I., Lau, L., and Bullock, L.: Autistic Voices in Geoscience: Lessons to enhance inclusive practice, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6072, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6072, 2025.

How to cite: Griffin, M.: Embedding Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility (EDIA) within a Professional Geoscientist’s Lifestyle, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6886, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6886, 2025.

The EGU recognises the importance of equality, diversity, and inclusion as a crucial foundation for scientific research. The increasing diversity of our membership in all its facets fosters collaborative research and discovery that benefits humanity and our planet and contributes to reaching the goal of addressing global challenges.

The EGU EDI Committee, since its foundation in 2021, is actively promoting diversity in the EGU initiatives and community. The aim of the EDI Committee is to promote equality, diversity and inclusivity with a broad vision and a global approach, by working with sister associations.

The EDI Committee tasks currently include: (1) Promoting the EGU vision of EDI via an integrated, co-ordinated and constructive approach; (2) 
Raising awareness of the value of EDI within the scientific community; (3) Organising sessions and meetings dedicated to EDI issues as part of the EGU General Assembly, and at other conferences and meetings organised by EGU and its sibling societies; (4) Representing EGU on relevant initiatives focusing on EDI in the geosciences; (5) Providing constructive suggestions and ideas to the EGU Council to promote EDI within the organisation, and the geosciences in general.

The most recent achievements of EDI@EGU are the Champion(s) for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Award that is bestowed to recognize excellent contributions to put into exemplary practice the principles of EDI. Furthermore, a new travel support scheme to promote diversity at the EGU General assemblies, is first activated in 2025.

The above actions resulted in a more diverse attendance at EGU General Assemblies along the years. The total number of presenters has increased over the time period 2015-2024, and this increase was observed throughout all career stages. The proportion of women presenters has increased from 2015 to 2024.

In the hybrid meeting in 2024 approximately 90% of the participants attended in Vienna. A slightly higher proportion of the oldest (>75 years) and youngest (18-25 years) participants attended online. While there were no differences in how women and men participated (online or physically), there are differences connected to the country affiliations. The great majority of participants from countries in most of western Europe, Asia and North America attended in Vienna, while more participants from other continents attended online.

We aim to analyse the changes in demographics with regards to gender, career stage as well as to geographical distribution of the presenters and participants also in coming years to better understand the potential impacts of meetings organized online or physically, or as a combination of both these modes.

How to cite: Stadmark, J., Montanari, A., and Wingate, L.: Status and Progress of Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity at EGU General Assemblies, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6932, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6932, 2025.

Science Sisters is a YouTube video and seminar series hosted by Dr. Iris van Zelst. Lighthearted in tone, it explores different career paths, academic life, and science communication in the planetary and geosciences. The guests on the show represent a range of role models to celebrate the diversity of people working in STEM. They are interviewed by Iris on their personal experiences on different topics. Past seasons have included topics like ethical fieldwork, switching careers, science communication, postdoc life, leadership, women in science, job applications, postdoc hopping, outreach, publishing, feeling incompetent, astronaut training, toxic academia, and how to build a research group.

We are now proud to announce that the production of season 3 of Science Sisters has wrapped and post-production, such as the editing of the videos, is in full swing. Anticipated to launch in fall 2025, the new season of Science Sisters will consist of the traditional interview videos and a hybrid online seminar where a viewing party of the episode is combined with an after-show discussion between Iris, the guest, and any research groups and individuals interested in joining.

This hybrid form of Science Sisters has proven to kickstart conversations in institutes and increase the cohesion within institutes by creating a more understanding atmosphere. Early career scientists in particular say that Science Sisters is extremely useful to learn about life as a researcher and they enjoy the chatty, entertaining quality of the interviews.

In season 3, the main topics across our 7 episode series are:

• PhD life

• Failure (and how to deal with it)

• Working at NASA

• Motivation (or lack thereof)

• Science management

• Lab work

• Academic motherhood

Of course, each episode also features individual experiences of (non-)academic career paths to show the diversity of ways in which people can interface with science and work in academia.

Using the hybrid form of videos and online webinars, Science Sisters therefore continues to contribute to promoting and supporting inclusivity in the planetary and geosciences. 

How to cite: Cano Amoros, M. and van Zelst, I.: A new hybrid video & seminar series: Season 3 of Science Sisters is on its way! , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6963, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6963, 2025.

For many geoscientists, participating in conferences are vital for their career as they provide access to state-of-the-art knowledge in their research field but also provide opportunities to share their own results whilst expanding their research network.

However, the opportunity to attend large geoscience conferences for many researchers often comes at a significant financial burden. In particular, researchers that have caring responsibilities, disabilities or experience temporary unemployment often find it a financial challenge to cover the extra costs incurred for conference participation from research project budgets or from their affiliated research institutions. This not only places a strain on those geoscientists already facing financial hardship, but it also leads to the exclusion of researchers from career-defining meetings.

In 2025, the EGU launched a new EDI Participation Support Scheme for EGU members with the aim of addressing this inequity. This support scheme aims to provide financial assistance to scientists in the Earth, planetary, and space sciences who encounter significant EDI-related financial barriers that prevent them from participating to the EGU General Assembly because of caregiving responsibilities, disability and special needs as well as temporary geoscience career transitions. In this presentation, we will provide valuable information about this new support scheme and encourage the community to raise awareness of these financial burdens with their colleagues, research institutions and research funders.

How to cite: Wingate, L., Hart, J., Turton, J., and Jacobs, P.: Tackling EDI-related financial barriers that reduce inclusivity at geoscience conferences with the EGU EDI Participation Support Scheme, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-7140, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-7140, 2025.

Major sporting events, like the Summer Olympics or the FIFA World Cup, attract a global audience of billions of spectators. While many agree that watching the Olympic Games in one of its venues is the best way to experience the event, less than one per mille of the billions worldwide audience can attend in person. The majority watch such events at public events, at home with families and friends, or by themselves on their mobile devices. All these different modes of watching the Olympics allow a global audience access to a major sporting event.

International research meetings were forced into mainly online modes by the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020-2022. While the availability of online formats was initially high, it has since dropped, and only a small fraction of meeting organisers have made efforts to develop new formats that offer value to online participants. At the same time, the poor quality of virtual options and the “rush back to normal” contributed to a drop in virtual participant numbers. This is a missed opportunity; it disregards the high environmental costs of large international meetings and favours those who can afford the high costs and time commitment of international travel and are, therefore, already advantaged. For many in the Global South, attending international conferences offered as in-person-only events is almost impossible, widening the gap in their ability to participate in global science.

While technologies for alternative modes of participation exist, many organisers of conferences cite the excessive cost and a lack of interest as barriers. Financial modelling by a major conference provider showed that offering alternative participation modes adds approximately five to ten per cent to the cost of running a conference, which can be easily offset by attracting additional participants. However, conflicting aims exist between conference organisers wanting to offer alternative participation modes but also having to be financially sustainable, as well as conference venues and tourism boards, who want to maximise the number of participants on-site. It has been reported that tourism boards and conference venues use subsidies and overpriced equipment to discourage alternatives to on-site participation.

For their 2024 Annual Scientific Meeting, the Astronomical Society of Australia organised an “online-first” conference with a location-specific “Hub Day” during the week to offer space for in-person interactions. As this example shows, there are many opportunities to innovate by blending in-person, hybrid, and online formats and adopting new technologies (see, e.g., https://thefutureofmeetings.wordpress.com), including local or regional hubs where participants can gather to discuss and network. Alternative modes are already being used successfully by communities in other areas of society to bring people together and the scientific community is lagging behind. We could draw inspiration from completely different types of events, like games, international sports or cultural events. This presentation is about how we can make research meetings more accessible, inclusive, and sustainable by being more creative about modes of participation and thinking outside the box. 

How to cite: Klump, J., Moss, V., Kobayashi, R., Wyborn, L., Kethers, S., and Siegel, C.: Inclusive scientific meetings need alternative modes of participation, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-7701, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-7701, 2025.

We organized an informal equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) themed reception for the attendees of the European Aerosol Conference (EAC) 2024 to encourage reflection and sharing of both positive and negative behaviors observed in academic workspaces. 

The event was held in a private venue near the conference site. The three-hour event featured a combination of short talks, a presentation on current and past EDI initiatives within the Finnish aerosol science community, and informal discussions in small groups. The relaxed setting fostered open dialogue and active participation. 

During the event, attendees were invited to anonymously write about their personal experiences at their workspace on sticky notes and attach them to a poster displayed throughout the reception. This interactive approach provided a safe space for participants to voice their thoughts and experiences, which remained visible for collective reflection until the event concluded. 

The collected messages were categorized into two main themes. Positive Aspects included respect and inclusion, supportive environments, social connections, and practical guidance. Negative Aspects highlighted challenges such as discrimination, exclusion, judgment, and unproductive atmospheres. Combined insights collected within this activity provide a clear understanding of workplace dynamics, offering valuable perspectives for promoting equity and addressing areas of concern within academic environments.

How to cite: Atashi, N., Hartikainen, A., Salo, L., Ylivinkka, I., Shahzaib, M., Dal Maso, M., and Lauri, K. A.: Positive and Negative Academic Workplace Behaviors:  Experiences Gathered at a Scientific Conference, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-9552, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-9552, 2025.

Transition services are essential for supporting students with intellectual disabilities (ID) as they prepare for independent adult lives. While special education teachers in both the United States and Korea acknowledge the importance of providing these systematic services, their actual implementation varies widely due to differing teacher backgrounds and numerous barriers. This study examines these barriers through the lens of Windschitl's framework, which categorizes dilemmas into four types: conceptual, pedagogical, cultural, and political. These dilemmas serve as a foundation for understanding why teachers struggle to implement transition services, even when they recognize their significance.

Focusing on the Korean context, this study explored the experiences of special school teachers working with students with ID and identified additional dilemmas beyond those categorized by Windschitl. To achieve this, qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with 35 special school teachers currently implementing transition services. Using the constant comparative method, the data was analyzed to uncover key categories, their properties, and how these elements interconnect.

The findings revealed that Korean teachers viewed transition services as vital for equipping students with ID with the skills necessary for employment, societal integration, and independence. However, despite understanding their importance, teachers reported low implementation levels due to various challenges. These included limited resources, insufficient professional development, lack of collaboration among stakeholders, and inadequate institutional support.

Rather than placing blame on teachers for the low implementation of transition services, the study emphasizes the need to create supportive environments. Collaborative efforts among school administrators, parents, policymakers, and disability organizations are critical to fostering conditions where teachers can succeed. Furthermore, investing in professional training and strengthening educational and social infrastructure would significantly enhance teachers’ capacity to provide effective transition services.

By addressing these systemic issues, this study underscores the importance of supporting special educators in their efforts to improve outcomes for students with ID, ultimately enabling them to transition successfully into adulthood.

How to cite: park, Y.: Exploring Barriers and Dilemmas in Transition Services: Insights from Korean Special Education Teachers for Students with Intellectual Disabilities, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10224, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10224, 2025.

The European Research Council (ERC), Europe’s premier funding agency for frontier research, views equality of opportunities as an essential priority and a vital mission to ensure fairness in the review process. The ERC monitors various demographic data yearly on every call and has taken actions to tackle imbalances and potential implicit and explicit biases.

Demographic gender and geographical distribution data on external reviewers is presented. External reviewers are experts who support ERC evaluation panels by externally reviewing proposals in their fields of specialization. The analysis focuses on the rates of nomination and invitation of these experts, as well as rates of acceptance and completion of the reviews. The data is presented by call and by scientific domain. In the current framework programme (Horizon Europe, 2021-2027), 24% of nominated external reviewers were women, 75% were men and 1% are non-binary. Acceptance and completion rates for men and women are similar.

Furthermore, data on requests of the eligibility window extensions are included. During the grants’ application process, the ERC allows potential grantees to extend the eligibility window, both for Consolidator and Starting Grants. These extensions are conditional on certain circumstances (e.g. parental leave, long-term illness, or clinical training). These circumstances and conditions constantly evolve. In this way, to better comprehend and monitor these requests, the ERC recently started an in-depth analysis of such data, gathered between 2021 and 2024. The data are disaggregated by year, gender, and by grant type. The analysis shows that there is a clear disparity between women researchers and men researchers when requesting extensions; both in terms of numbers and circumstances.

The ERC knows that work to ensure inclusive excellence and equality of opportunities is never-ending. This presentation analyses the institutional efforts, procedures and critically discusses the results.

How to cite: Jesus-Rydin, C., Fariña-Busto, L., Ruiz, M., Le Noir de Carlan, B., and Jansen, E.: Inclusive excellence at the ERC: demographic data on external reviewers and eligibility extensions, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10372, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10372, 2025.

There has been a significant increase in both the number of publications and number of citations in the last decade partly fueled by the increased exposure to research papers and such as Google Scholar, Web of Science, ResearchGate, etc. The large data set of scientific literature and respective authors in these platforms can be utilized to get a broad overview of academic discourse. This project aims to investigate the state of academia in the field of Natural Hazards and Climate Extremes using Google Scholar data. A comprehensive set of relevant tags (such as earthquake, volcano, natural hazards, climate extremes etc.) were used to filter the researchers. Additionally, a threshold of 500 citations or more was applied to focus on the most influential academics in this field. We limited the analysis to the period 1990-2023 and subsequently stratified the obtained results by gender (as perceived by the authors) and country of affiliation of the researchers. Data for number of publications was also collected for each of the researchers.

Among 2612 researchers identified, 77.2% are male, 22.6% female, and 0.2% could not be categorized into male or female. Male researchers, on average, received a larger median number of citations compared to women even though the gender citation gap in percentage has been decreasing over the last decade. Notably, regression analysis showed that, there is limited difference in number of citations per publication between the two genders. The data also shows that 78.5% of citations are attributed to researchers in high-income countries, 14.4% for those in middle-income countries, and 7.1% for those in low-income countries despite researchers in low- and middle-income countries publishing more papers per year, on average, than their counter parts in high-income countries. The researchers from high-income countries also get larger number of citations per author, on average, even when controlling for number of publications. However, the citation gap between high-income and low- and middle-income countries has narrowed in recent years. Interestingly, the observed citation gap between researchers is more pronounced due to income group than gender. In conclusion, even though disasters affect poor countries and women disproportionately, the fact that the field of natural hazards and climate extremes is largely high-income country and male-dominated raises fundamental questions on teh epistemology and legitimacy of the scientific knowledge that has been generated. 

How to cite: Shrestha, S. R., Olivetti, L., Pandey, S., Worou, K., and Rafetti, E.: The Citation Gap: An overview of academic output in the field of Natural Hazards and Climate Extremes analysed through Google Scholar data, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11159, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11159, 2025.

How to cite: Dzekon, T., Giampoala, M., Wooden, P., and Ricci, M.: Equity in Geoscience Publishing: Indigenous Data Governance and Tackling Parachute Science, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12317, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12317, 2025.

Geo-INQUIRE, an EU Horizon project starting in 2022, brings together 51 partners, including high-level research institutes, universities and European consortia from different EU countries. The project aims to improve access to selected key data, products and services to monitor and model the dynamic processes within the geosphere at new levels of spatial and temporal detail and accuracy. With 150 Virtual Access (VA) and Transnational Access (TA) facilities, together with tailored mentoring programs, including workshops (both online and face-to-face), trainings and seminars, Geo-INQUIRE has brought together over 2,300 researchers in the past two years, offering 20 training events and 7 workshops attended by participants from over 70 countries. While in total 44% of these participants have been female, this number reflects the project’s ongoing commitment to gender balance, inclusion and diversity, but also acknowledges that further progress is still desired.

Despite the projects complexity due to high number of partner institutions, several strategies have been implemented to foster inclusion. These include the unique establishment of an independent advisory committee (EDIP), assigning an EDIP member (by rotation) as ex-officio member of Transnational Activity Review Panel (TARP), thinking of strategies to reduce unconscious bias in review of TA applications, setting targets for female participation and researchers from Horizon’s widening countries, offering travel support and affordable accommodation to reduce financial barriers, recording of online training events to enable access and maximise flexibility. Additionally, novel recruitment practices, supportive workplace policies and efforts to increase female representation in leadership roles have been introduced. Geo-INQUIRE also fosters inclusion across a wide range of career backgrounds (including less conventional career paths) and brings together researchers from diverse scientific disciplines—such as solid earth, marine science, and carbon capture and storage - as well as those with technical expertise in IT. Strategies such as seminars have proven effective in bridging these gaps and reducing barriers between different fields. We will present examples of these actions, discuss lessons learned and propose example guidelines for promoting diversity in large-scale research projects.

How to cite: Türker, E., Christadler, I., Cotton, F., Gabriel, A.-A., Jalayer, F., Litwin-Prestes, M., Strollo, A., Weege, S., Kohler, E., Majdański, M., and Sandri, L.: Practical implementation of diversity and inclusion measures in large EU Horizon projects: lessons learned from Geo-INQUIRE., EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-13088, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-13088, 2025.

The geosciences are at a pivotal moment as institutions, organizations, and individuals confront long-standing inequities to create a more inclusive and representative future. As a geoscientist actively engaged in equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) initiatives, I have witnessed both the barriers and breakthroughs shaping this transformation. Notably, the geosciences have some of the poorest metrics for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in STEM disciplines. Guided by the principle, “What gets measured, gets done,” my work has focused on quantifying EDI impacts to drive meaningful progress.
Drawing on my role as an executive member of the Canadian Geophysical Union’s EDI Committee, I will present key findings from a comprehensive EDI report on representation statistics from Canadian Geophysical Union conferences since 2018. As a director on the board of Women Geoscientists in Canada, a prominent organization supporting women in technical roles, I will highlight the challenges and successes in addressing gender imbalance and improving diversity within the mining industry.
Lastly as a federal research scientist working on critical mineral exploration and green energy transitions, I will explore how EDI efforts can advance community engagement, inclusive excellence, interdisciplinary collaboration, ethical fieldwork, and environmental justice. By sharing these experiences across government, industry, and academia, this presentation will offer actionable strategies to address barriers and inspire collaboration for a more equitable future in Canadian geosciences.

How to cite: Dave, R.: Advancing Equity in Geosciences: Insights and Actions from the Canadian EDI Landscape, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-14621, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-14621, 2025.

Despite the increased awareness towards Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI), the glaciological community still experiences and perpetuates numerous examples of inappropriate and discriminatory behavior, adding to the systemic inequalities embedded in the scientific community. What are the EDI challenges we currently face within the glaciological research community? How can we overcome them? Where do we want our research community to be in fifty years? These questions were used as a starting point for a first-of-its-kind workshop at the 2023 Karthaus Summer School on Ice Sheets and Glaciers in the Climate System. Drawing on the outcomes of that workshop, we discuss the answers and challenges to addressing these questions, in the form of both actionable steps forward and imaginative visions of the future. We identified common threads from the workshop responses and distilled them into collective visions for the future. Having consulted additional literature, while formulating suggestions for improvement, stating our own commitment, and highlighting existing initiatives, contributions to this “time capsule” exercise were sorted into three main challenges we want and need to face: making glaciology more accessible, equitable, and responsible (Nicola et al, in review).

How to cite: Nicola, L., Frøystad, R., Juarez-Martinez, A., Menthon, M., Moraes Luzardi, A. C., Turner, K., Wilson, S. F., and Keisling, B. and the Karthaus 2023 EDI team: An EDI time capsule from the 2023 Karthaus Summer School: Where do we want the glaciological community to be in 50 years?, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18414, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18414, 2025.

Equitable Letters in Space and Physics (ELSP) is an organization that aims to encourage merit-based recommendations and nominations in the space physics community by providing resources and reviews. Recommendation and award nomination letters are a known source of bias that affect education and job opportunities, career progression, and recognition for scientists from underrepresented backgrounds.  ELSP was founded to combat this bias within the current system by providing a proof-reading service that focuses on identifying phrasing and structure within letters that unintentionally undermines the purpose of the missive.  If you are writing a recommendation letter for someone you know professionally, you can send it to us and we will send it out to our reviewers. They will provide recommendations on how you can make your letter more equitable and less biased, using a combination of the techniques and resources described on our site, with the aim to make unbiased recommendation letters more accessible to all. If you are interested in being a reviewer or having your writing reviewed, please reach out to us.

How to cite: Halford, A., Burrell, A., Coxon, J., Jones, M., Zawdie, K., and Barnam, J.: Working towards more equitable  recomendations and nomination letters: Equitable Letters for Space and Physics, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-20423, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-20423, 2025.

The triumphant implementation of equity, diversity, and inclusivity (EDI) programs in academia after more than a decade of increasing pressure and promise has brought hope to many but, unfortunately, justice to few. Enough time has passed to reveal the fraught inner workings of academia and their ability to make effective change, even as universities might be expected to lead with exemplary behavior. Sadly, the reverse is true. Failure of universities to act or react appropriately has seriously crippled EDI efforts in many academic settings. University administrators and even university presidents have lost their employment for taking EDI seriously. Those facts severely degrade the EDI landscape in academia going forward.

Stepping back and turning a scientific lens on the university environment, what are the flaws in implementation? They are rooted in human behavior and decision-making in adversarial surroundings, the recipe for fear. One might line up the course of action in three steps: (1) identifying the issues, (2) building a structure and path toward solution, and (3) establishing a university-sanctioned outcome that removes perpetual perpetrators and enables, even celebrates, those with the courage to speak up. A power relationship is almost always part of the play. Alas, though the first step is generally mastered, the second step is better known as “protecting the university at all costs”, and completion of the third step is dead rare. Rather, the rare settlement involves a victim signing away their right to talk to the press, so as not to damage the university’s reputation. This obvious three-act opera loses footing in the second act. The outcome is driven by “what is the easiest path for the university” and is too rarely driven by doing the right thing. The EDI system at most universities presents the ultimate conflict-of-interest: university lawyers are paid by the university or its governing body and thus, are indebted to them for employment and the outcomes of EDI decisions they make.

Failure to Act is a three-act play that explores the darker workings behind the academic scenery.  Can we change the storyline so that students and faculty will believe that the system works for them, should they ever need it? That is far from the standard we have now, even as sometimes generous funding has been diverted to build up EDI programming in academia. 

How to cite: Stein, H. and Hannah, J.: Failure to Act:  Universities’ Promising EDI Template Withering on the Vine, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-20788, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-20788, 2025.

Statistical models are a frequently used tool in hydrology, especially when it comes to estimating design floods, i.e. flood events that used to design flood protection systems or reservoirs. The often complex hydrological data, which are affected by e.g. missing values, extremes or time-varying processes, require sophisticated statistical models that take these challenges into account. As a scientist, developing such models can be a lot of fun and provide interesting insights. After months of thinking about the best model under certain statistical assumptions, proving asymptotic theorems and testing the model with synthetic data, you are happy and proud to have developed a new model. This model will hopefully be widely used in future research. The next step is to apply the model to a large real data set. The results look good on average. The results will be shared with practitioners, because of course you want the model to be useful for science and practice. And then: the phone call. You are told that your results are not plausible for a certain catchment area. And in general, the new model is not needed in practice because there is an established model. This example describes such a case and discusses ways of dealing with it. It is intended to illustrate the importance of communication between science and practice and a general understanding between both sides.

How to cite: Fischer, S.: When practical considerations impact your scientific model, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-1620, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-1620, 2025.

In the early 1990's, fractals and chaos were hot. In 1987, James Gleick had published "Chaos: Making a New Science", popularizing non-linear dynamics. Hydrologists played an important role in the development of fractal theory. Hurst had discovered that sequences of dry and wet years for the Nile showed very long memory effects. Instead of the chance of a dry year following a dry year being 50%, Hurst found that there were surprisingly many long series of dry or wet years. Seven fat years, seven lean years, as it is noted in Genesis. Scott Tyler found fractals in soils ("Fractal processes in soil water retention"). At Cornell, where we were at the time, David Turcotte described "Fractals in geology and geophysics". A few years later, Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe and Andrea Rinaldo would publish "Fractal River Basins: Chance and Self-Organization". In short, fractals were exciting scientific gold.

A fractal is not just an obscure mathematical object but something that can actually be found everywhere in nature. Early on, a paper was published in Nature with the title "Fractal viscous fingering in clay slurries" by Van Damme, Obrecht, Levitz, Gatineau, and Laroche. They "only" did an experiment on a fractal embedded in 2D; we should be able to do one better and find the fractal dimension of the surface of cracking clay embedded in 3D. So out we went, collected some clay, mixed it with water in a cement mixer, siliconed together a shallow "aquarium", and poured in the slurry. To observe the cracking of the drying slurry, a video camera was mounted above the experiment, looking down and taking time-lapse images. To access the views from the sides, mirrors were installed at 45 degrees at each of the four sides. Lights made sure the camera captured high quality images. The whole set-up was enclosed in a frame with dark cloth to ensure that lighting was always the same.  We already had some box-counting code ready to calculate the fractal dimension of the surface, called the Minkowski–Bouligand dimension. One variable needed some extra attention, namely the boundary between the clay slurry and the glass sides. If the clay would cling to the sides, it would be difficult to understand the effects that this boundary condition had on the outcome of the experiment. Moreover, the cracks may not have become visible in the mirrors when the sides were covered with mud. So, instead, it was decided to make the sides hydrophobic with some mineral oil. This ensured that when the clay would start to shrink, it would come loose from the sides. Now, all we had to do was wait. It took only a week or so before the consolidated slurry started to shrink and to come loose from the sides. After that, the clay continued shrink for many weeks. This is how we learned that the fractal dimension of a shrinking brick of clay is (very close) to 3.0. 

How to cite: van de Giesen, N. and Selker, J.: The Minkowski–Bouligand dimension of a clay brick, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-1660, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-1660, 2025.

In 2018, we found exciting new results in landform evolution modeling by coupling the two simplest models of fluvial erosion and hillslope processes. While the stream-power incision model is the simplest model for detachment-limited fluvial erosion, the diffusion equation is the simplest description of hillslope processes at long timescales. Both processes were added at each grid cell without an explicit separation between channels and hillslopes because fluvial erosion automatically becomes dominant at large catchment sizes and negligible at small catchment sizes.

We found that increasing diffusion reduces the relief at small scales (individual hillslopes), but even increases the large-scale relief (entire catchments). As an immediate effect, the hillslopes become less steep. In turn, however, we observed that the network of the clearly incised valleys, which indicates dominance of fluvial erosion over diffusion, became smaller. So a smaller set of fluvially dominated grid cells had to erode the material entering from the hillslopes. To maintain a morphological equilibrium with a given uplift rate, the rivers had to steepen over long time. This steepening even overcompensated the immediate decrease in relief of the hillslopes.

This result was counterintuitive at first, but we were happy to find a reasonable explanation. So we even prepared a short manuscript for a prestigious  journal. We just did not submit it because we wanted to explain the effect quantitatively from the physical parameters of the model. From these theoretical considerations, we found that our numerical results did not only depend on the model parameters, but also on the spatial resolution of the model and noticed that this scaling problem was already discussed in a few published studies. Beyond the scaling problem, we also realized that applying the concept of detachment-limited fluvial erosion to the sediment brought from the hillslopes into the rivers is quite unrealistic. A later study including fluvial sediment transport and a model for hillslope processes that avoids scaling problems did not predict any increase in large-scale relief. So we finally realized that our original findings were mainly the result of a specific combination of models that should not be coupled this way and are not  as relevant for landform evolution as we thought.

This example illustrates many of the pitfalls of numerical modeling beyond purely technical issues. In particular, combining models that are widely used and make sense individually may still cause unexpected problems.

How to cite: Hergarten, S. and Robl, J.: Landslides and hillslope erosion increase relief, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-5035, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-5035, 2025.

In this presentation, I will discuss my research into the simple climate model Hector, which calculates temperature change based on the impact of various climate scenarios. More specifically, I will discuss how an artistic-led approach through (un)voluntary-caused computational bugs can help document the model's logic and socio-political implications. I will describe methods for collective 'debugging' to produce transdisciplinary knowledge (beyond solely scientific inquiry) to foster conversation about the potential and limits of current climate infrastructure to foster concrete climate actions. This research investigates the field of climate science through artistic practice, software and infrastructure studies, and participatory methods. To expand on the role of bugs in my investigation, I will elaborate on concrete examples of differences in perception of 'error' in the fields of arts and science, looking at case studies where mistakes or glitches have been valorised and mobilised through artistic practice to grapple with, appropriate, and/or repurpose scientific instruments.

How to cite: Legrand, G.: (Re)(De)bugging tragedies with Hector, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-5091, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-5091, 2025.

"Doesn't this look a bit strange?" 

It began with an innocent question during one of our Master's colloquia. And it could have ended there. "We were just following an approach from the literature". And who could argue against following the literature?

But it bugged me. During a long train ride, I began to think about the issue again. 10 hours and many papers later, I was only more confused: was it really that obvious, and why had no one picked up on it before? But sometimes the most obvious things are the most wicked, and after a few conversations with knowledgeable colleagues, I was sure we were in for an unexpected surprise. 

A commonly used approach to defining heat extremes is as exceedances of percentile-based thresholds that follow the seasonal cycle. Such relative extremes are then expected to be evenly distributed throughout the year. For example, over the 30-year period 1961-1990, we expect three (or 10%) of January 1s to exceed a 90th percentile threshold defined for the same period - and the same for all other days of the year. In a recent study, we show that there are many cases where this does not hold, not even close (Brunner and Voigt 2024).

Here, we tell the story of how this blunder spread in the literature out of the desire to improve extreme thresholds. We show that seemingly innocent changes can sometimes have unintended consequences and that taking the time to check the obvious can help avoid mistakes in science. 

Brunner L. and Voigt A. (2024): Pitfalls in diagnosing temperature extremes, Nature Communications, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46349-x

How to cite: Brunner, L., Meindl, M., and Voigt, A.: Improving extreme temperature definitions until they are wrong, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-5951, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-5951, 2025.

When economists estimate the expected economic damages from current-day CO₂ emissions, they usually calculate the social cost of carbon – that is, the aggregated damage caused by the emission of an additional ton of CO₂. Several cost-benefit integrated assessment models (IAMs) are built to assess this quantity, and among them is the META model. This model is built specifically to assess the effects of tipping points on the social cost of carbon, and it usually operates stochastically. When integrating a deterministic, but small carbon cycle tipping point into the model, however, the social cost of carbon seems to explode: a few gigatons of additional emissions almost double the impact estimates of CO₂ emissions! Well, maybe. In fact, these results are a pure artifact of two things: 1) the way in which social cost of carbon estimates are calculated with IAMs; and 2) the way that tipping points are implemented in the META model. And, of course, 3): a lack of initial thoughtfulness on behalf of myself. A thorough look into this issue shows that, as expected, a marginal change in emissions leads to a marginal change in damage estimates. While that result is rather boring, the previous blunder can actually be instructive about the scarcely-known methods used to obtain economic impact estimates of climate change.

How to cite: Schaumann, F.: Drastic increase in economic damages caused by a marginal increase in CO2 emissions?, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-9145, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-9145, 2025.

Historically, large areas across the globe have been affected by deforestation or irrigation expansion. The replacement of forests with agricultural land and increased water availability in irrigated croplands altered the land’s surface properties, leading to influences of biogeophysical changes on near-surface temperature. From limited observations and mostly idealized simulations, we know that sufficiently large alterations of land surface properties can theoretically lead to systematic temperature and precipitation changes outside and even far from the altered areas. Not only the advection of temperature anomalies, but also changes in circulation and ocean feedbacks have been shown to be potential drivers of such non-local responses in single and multi-model studies.

We tested the robustness of non-local temperature signals to internal variability in the fully coupled Community Earth System Model 2 (CESM2) simulations of the historical period (1850 – 2014) with all forcings vs. all-but-land-use-change forcings. Doing so, we first found seemingly robust non-local temperature effects of land use change on the global and regional scale. But when accounting for the sampling of internal variability in the model using a large initial condition ensemble, the global scale signal was found to be indistinguishable from noise. Only regionally in some hotspots, we found robust and historically important non-local temperature signals. Through increasingly rigorous analysis, we reached a partly negative and unexpected but important finding, which may have implications for future assessments of comparably weak or spatially heterogeneous forcings to the Earth system.

How to cite: Jäger, F., Sieber, P., Simpson, I., Lawrence, D., Lawrence, P., and Seneviratne, S. I.: How robust are modeled non-local temperature effects of historical land use changes really?, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10285, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10285, 2025.

Failures are only common in science, and hydrological modelling is no exception. However, we modellers usually do not like to talk about our mistakes or our overly optimistic expectations and, thus, “negative” results usually do not get published. While there are examples where model failures indicated issues with the observational data, in this presentation the focus is on modelling studies, where some more (realistic) thinking could have helped to avoid disappointments. Examples include the unnecessary comparison of numerically identical model variants, naively optimistic expectations about increasing the physical basis of bucket-type models and excessively hopeful assumptions about the value of data.

How to cite: Seibert, J., Clerc-Schwarzenbach, F., van Meerveld, I., and Vis, M.: Think twice – pitfalls in hydrological modelling, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10615, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10615, 2025.

The idea of invisible ship tracks for the study of aerosol-cloud interactions sounds promising: We have been studying the effects of aerosols on clouds for many years, among others by investigating the bright lines of clouds left in low marine clouds by ships. However, only a small fraction of ships leaves behind visible tracks. This means we can only study aerosol-cloud interactions under certain meteorological conditions, biasing our understanding. Instead, by studying all clouds polluted by ships ('invisible ship tracks') with a methodology we developed, we should be able to get a full picture of aerosol-cloud interactions. A number of interesting and impactful results have come out of this research, along with several setbacks and corrections to initial results. Here, we examine them in order, showing how correcting for one identified bias can introduce two new ones. Unexpected glitches arise from sources as varied as: choices regarding ship track definition, retrieval geometry, specific weather systems biasing results, and mathematical subtleties. What can we conclude after four years of progress on this methodology? While some results still stand, others had to be significantly corrected. This makes us see invisible ship tracks as an example of research that is closer to a method of 'tinkering' than to a 'magnificent discovery'.

How to cite: Manshausen, P., Tippett, A., Gryspeerdt, E., and Stier, P.: Two steps forward, one step back: four years of progress and setbacks on invisible ship tracks, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11357, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11357, 2025.

Earth system models are important tools used to understand our climate system and project possible changes in our climate due to anthropogenic and natural forcings. Human errors can occur in the development of Earth System models, i.e., bugs, giving an unphysical representation of our climate. A way to identify and solve bugs is to apply physical concepts. Here, we present an experience that occurred in the development of the ICOsahedral Non-hydrostatic model (ICON) as a kilometer-scale Earth System model, in which physically understanding a bug in the surface energy budget fixed land precipitation. 

In a simulation of ICON, referred to as ICON-bug, precipitation over tropical land continuously decreased across the simulation. This led to a ratio of land-ocean precipitation in the tropics of less than 0.7, which, otherwise, should be more than 0.86. As part of the possible explanations, the surface energy budget over land was targeted as a culprit. This idea relies on the influence of the interaction between soil moisture, surface heat fluxes, and winds to generate circulation favoring precipitation over dry land surfaces (Hohenegger and Stevens 2018). Indeed, the surface energy budget over dry surfaces in the ICON-bug showed an error in sensible heat flux. The sensible heat flux transmitted to the atmosphere was 70% of what was calculated for the surface module. Fixing this error closed the surface energy budget and increased land precipitation over the tropics, leading to a ratio of land-ocean precipitation of 0.94, close to observations. 

How to cite: Segura, H., Hohenegger, C., Schnur, R., and Stevens, B.: Physical understanding of bugs to improve the representation of the climate system  , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12720, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12720, 2025.

Whenever you study a phenomenon of mm to a few cm-scale in the laboratory which involves an interface, the question of surface tension arises. Surface tension is due to the fact that molecules prefer to stay with their own kind. Therefore, the creation of an interface between two fluids requires energy, and this influences the dynamics around the interface.

Surface tension can be a blessing: it produces the round shape of rain drops or the nice bubble shapes of colorful liquid in a lava lamp. It allows objects with a higher density to float on a liquid (such as an insect on water, or a silicone plate on sugar syrup). It can generate flow up a capillary.

However, it can also be a curse in the case of thermal convection. Purely thermal convection  develops when a plane layer of fluid is heated from below and cooled from above. The engine of motion is the thermal buoyancy of the fluid. This is what is happening in a planetary mantle on scales of hundreds to thousands kilometers. This is also what is happening in a closed box in the laboratory. But as soon as an interface exists, either between an upper and a lower experimental mantle, or in the case of a free surface at the top of the fluid layer, surface tension effects can become important. For exemple, the variation of surface tension with temperature was responsible for the beautiful honey-comb patterns imaged by Benard (1901) in the first systematic study of thermal convection with a free-surface. Surface tension is also going to act against the initiation of subduction (which acts to break the surface). 

We shall review in this presentation the signatures of surface tension in a convective context, and the different ways to minimize and/or remove the effects of surface tension in convection experiments, such as using miscible liquids, or a layer of experimental « sticky air ».

How to cite: Davaille, A.: Analog studies of mantle convection: the curse of surface tension (or not) ?, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15059, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15059, 2025.

In hydrology we measure and follow the water. What if there is too much or too little? It happens a lot. As a field hydrologist, I frequently have to determine the location of a measurement, the time to take the measurement, the location to set up a field experiment, or the amount of a tracer to inject to study a hydrological system. However, this is a very bumpy road, as variability is often not in favor of my decisions because the distribution is wider than expected, bimodal instead of unimodal, or the probability of an event is theoretically small, but still an extreme event occurs during our experiment. I will showcase some examples to demonstrate what I mean and what I experienced, as well as how frequently the PhD students or Postdocs have suffered as a result of my decisions or of the unexpected variability: Climatic variability resulted in a winter without snow, just as new sensors were already deployed. Or the winter snowpack was extremely high, preventing any work at high altitudes in the Alps until mid of July, thereby reducing our field season by half. An ecohydological study to observe the effects of drought in a forest with a rainout shelter was ineffective because it occurred during an extremely dry year, making the control just as dry as our drought treatment. The automatic water sampler was set-up to collect stream water samples, but it was washed away four weeks later by the 50-year flood. The calculated amount of artificial tracer was either way too low, because the transit times of the system were much longer than expected, or it was far too high, resulting in colored streams or samples that had to be diluted by a factor of 100 due to much faster transit times Finally, and most expensively, we installed many trenches along forest roads to measure subsurface stormflow but after three years, we abandoned the measurements because we never measured a drop of water coming out of the trenches, as the bedrock permeability was much higher due to many high permeable fissures that prevented the formation of subsurface stormflow.  These experiments or observations failed because of unexpected variability in input, system properties or a lack of technical variability in the equipment. I will reflect on residual risk of failure in fieldwork related to that crux and discus approaches to reduce this risk.

How to cite: Weiler, M.: The crux with variability: too much or too little, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15457, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15457, 2025.

The emergence of global km-scale climate models allows us to study Earth's climate and its changes with unprecedented local detail. However, this step change in spatial resolution to grid spacings of 10 km or less also brings new challenges to the numerical methods used in the models, the storage of model output, and the processing of the output data into actionable climate information. The latest versions of the ICON-Sapphire model developed in the frame of the NextGEMS project address these challenges by running on an icosahedral grid while outputting data on the so-called HEALPix grid. Both grids are unstructured grids, which avoids, for example, the issue of longitude convergence. In addition, HEALPix allows data to be stored in a hierarchy of resolutions at different discrete zoom levels, making it easier for users to handle the data.  

The transition from the native 10 km grid to the output grid is made by a simple but very fast nearest-neighbour remapping. An advantage of this simple remapping approach is that the output fields are not distorted, i.e. the atmospheric states in the output remain self-consistent. As HEALPix only provides discrete zoom levels in the setup of the run, it was decided to remap to the closest available resolution of 12 km rather than to the next finer resolution of 6 km. This decision was made to avoid artificially increasing the number of grid points and to avoid creating duplicates through the nearest neighbour remapping.

As a consequence of this approach, wave-like patterns can emerge due to the Moiré effect that can result from the interaction of two grids. We find these patterns when looking at certain derived precipitation extremes, such as the annual maximum daily precipitation, the 10-year return level of hourly precipitation, or the frequency of dry days. At first, we interpreted these patterns as a plotting issue, as the figures might have too low resolution to cope with the high-resolution global plot (aliasing) leading to a Moiré pattern.

However, zooming in on the affected regions and closer examination of the data revealed that the pattern is in fact in the data. Further investigation with synthetic data confirmed the suspicion that the Moiré pattern was indeed caused by the remapping of the native 10 km icosahedral grid to the slightly coarser 12 km HEALPix grid. We hypothesise that precipitation is particularly affected by this issue, as it typically contains many grid cells with zero precipitation, with local clusters of non-zero values at the 15-minutely output interval. Yet, we cannot exclude the possibility that other variables are also affected.

As a consequence, if remapping is required, it is recommended to first remap from the native resolution to a finer resolution grid. As a next step, the conservative nature of the HEALPix hierarchy can be used to compute the coarser level. In this way it is likely to be possible to avoid aliasing and still keep the amount of output data the same.

How to cite: Poschlod, B., Brunner, L., Blanz, B., and Kluft, L.: Output regridding can lead to Moiré pattern in km-scale global climate model data from ICON, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15826, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15826, 2025.

Plastic pollution is a global issue, across all environmental compartments. Rivers connect the terrestrial with the marine environment, and they transport various materials, among these plastic pollution. Rivers not only transport plastic, but also accumulate and store it, especially on riverbanks. In fact, plastic deposition and accumulation on riverbanks is a common occurrence. However, our understanding of why plastic is deposited on a certain riverbank is rather limited. Riverbanks along all major Dutch rivers have been monitored for plastic and other litter twice a year by citizen scientists, in some locations since 2018. This provides an extensive dataset on plastic accumulation, and we used these data with the aim of understanding the factors determining plastic concentration/accumulation variability over time and space. We tested multiple riverbank characteristics, such as vegetation, riverbank slope, population density, etc., hypothesized to be related to plastic litter. After having exhausted a long list of auxiliary data and analysis strategies, we found no significant results. Ultimately, we had a close look at ten consistent hotspots of macroplastic litter, along the Meuse, and Waal river. And once again, they seem to have nothing in common. But, there is a pattern, because some riverbanks have consistently very high densities of plastic litter so it does not seem completely random. We have been looking to explain spatial variability, whereas we might have to look at temporal consistency, and we shall not give up our efforts to bring order to this chaos.

How to cite: Hauk, R., Teuling, A. J., van Emmerik, T. H. M., and van der Ploeg, M.: What river plastic hotspots do not have in common, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17676, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17676, 2025.

Grande Dixence, the tallest gravity dam in the world, is located in the Swiss Alps on the Dixence River with a catchment area of 4 km² at a towering elevation of 2000m. The lake serves as a collecting point of melt water from 35 glaciers and reaches full capacity by late September, subsequently draining during winter and dropping to lowest levels in April. For a reservoir as large as the Grande Dixence, the variation in hydrological load can be expected to induce changes in crustal stress. The goal of this study was to harness the loading effect of the time-varying level of reservoir load as a source of known stress to investigate the variation in seismic velocity of the bedrock due to changes induced in crustal stress and strain rates. 22 seismic nodes were thus deployed along the banks of the reservoir which were operational from mid-August to mid-September, corresponding to the time period when the lake level reaches its maximum. Of the 22 nodes, 18 were deployed in closely spaced patches of six in order to carry out coherent stacking and to increase the signal-to-noise ratio, besides one group of three nodes and one single node. Measurement quality appears satisfactory: small local earthquakes are recorded well, and the probabilistic power spectral densities (PPSDs) computed for data quality validation evidence the ambient noise levels to be well within the global noise limits. However, the recorded noise is unexpectedly complex and, at periods shorter than 1 second, varies strongly by location. The 0.5--5s (0.2--2 Hz) period band at lakes generally records a diurnally varying noise level, often associated with lake generated microseism. Diurnal variations around 1 second of period are observed in our study as well. The amplitude of ambient noise level around 1 second of period is observed to be highest when the lake level changes, along with the prominent diurnal variation. A similar variation is observed in the seismic velocity variation (dv/v) computed from cross-correlated and auto-correlated ambient noise filtered between 0.5--1 Hz, with dv/v exhibiting a drop with rising lake level. These results provide preliminary evidence for possible change in crustal stress state with changing hydrological load. Future direction of this study consists of analytically modeling the results to quantify the influence of thermobarometric parameters on PPSDs and dv/v, and deconvolve it from the lake induced variations.

How to cite: Uthaman, M., Ermert, L., Ling, A., Junker, J., Ghisleni, C., and Obermann, A.: Temporal variation of ambient noise at the Grande Dixence reservoir recorded by a nodal deployment, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17811, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17811, 2025.

Rivers play an important role in the global distribution of plastic pollution throughout the geosphere. Quantifying and understanding river plastic pollution is still an emerging field, which has advanced considerably thanks to broad efforts from science, practice, and society. Much progress in this field has been achieved through learning from failures, negative results, and unexpected outcomes. In this presentation we will provide several examples of serendipity and stupidity that has led to new insights, theories, methods, and completely new research lines. We will share what we learned from rivers flowing in the wrong direction, sensors that disappear, equipment blocked by invasive plants, and dealing with suspicious local authorities. Pushing the science sometimes requires an opportunistic approach, embracing surprises and chaos you may face along the way.

How to cite: van Emmerik, T. and the WUR-HWM River Plastic Team: Advancing river plastic research through serendipity and stupidity, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18185, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18185, 2025.

With the advent of parallel programming in the late 1990s. A port of the than available Max Planck Institutes for Meteorology spectral atmospheric model echam5 to MPI and OpenMP was done. For testing and validation of the hybrid parallelization a coherence algorithm was developed. The implementation has been incorporated into todays NWP and climate model ICON as well. The coherence algoritm consists of several stages: first one MPI rank is running the serial model against an n-task MPI parallelized model. During runtime the state vector is checked for binary-identity. If successfull a m-task MPI version can be compared to an m-task MPI version for high processor counts. The same schema can be used OpenMP parallelization. ONe MPI task runs the model serial using one OpenMP thread and a second MPI task runs k OpenMP threads. Again, the results are compared for binary-identity. As the testing needs to be done automatically, bit-identity is important for testing not necessarily for production.

The tesing revealed plenty of problems during the initial parallelization work of echam5 and showed constant appearing problems in the ICON development phase.

However, far in a couple of century long simulation the bit-identity was just by accident found to be broken: the search of the cause started!

How to cite: Kornblueh, L.: MPI and OpenMP coherence testing and vaildation: the hybris of testing non-deterministic model code, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18400, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18400, 2025.

Addressing positive publication bias and clearing out the file drawer has been at the core of the Journal of Trial and Error since its conception. Publishing the trial-and-error components of science is advantageous in numerous ways, as already pointed out in the description of this panel: errors can lead to unexpected insights and warning others about dead ends can prevent wasted time and other resources. Besides those advantages, publishing negative and null results facilitates conducting robust meta-analyses. In addition, predictive machine learning models benefit from training on data from all types of research rather than just data from studies with positive, exciting results; already researchers are reporting that models trained on published data are overly optimistic.

Besides publishing negative and null results as well as methodological failures, the Journal of Trial and Error couples each published study with a reflection article. The purpose of these reflection articles is to have a philosopher, sociologist or domain expert reflect on what exactly went wrong. This helps contextualize the failure, helping to pinpoint the systematic factors at play as well as helping the authors and other scientists to draw lessons from the reported research struggles which can be applied to improve future research.

Publishing failure brings with it some practical challenges: convincing authors to submit manuscripts detailing their trial-and-error; instructing peer reviewers on how to conduct peer review for the types of articles; differentiating between interesting … and uninformative, sloppy science; and determining the best formats to publish various failure-related outcomes in. Authors are still hesitant to publish their research struggles due to reputational concerns and time constraints. In addition, authors often fear that peer reviewers will be more critical of articles describing research failures compared to articles reporting positive results. To counteract this (perceived) tendency of peer reviewers to be more critical of research without positive results, we provide specific instructions to peer reviewers to only assess the quality of the study without taking into account the outcome. This then also ensures that we only publish research that adheres to the standards of the field rather than sloppy science. Whether submitted research provides informative insights is assed by the editor-in-chief and the handling editor.

Finally, we are constantly evaluating and innovating the types of articles we publish. Various types of errors and failures benefit from differing ways of reporting. For example, recently we introduced serendipity anecdotes, a format where scientists can anecdotally describe instances serendipity which occurred during their research. This format allows researchers to focus on the conditions which allowed for the serendipitous discovery rather than the research itself.    

How to cite: Gaillard, S.: Publishing BUGS: Insights from the Journal of Trial and Error, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18981, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18981, 2025.

It is common to perform two-dimensional simulations of mantle convection in spherical geometry. These have commonly been performed in axisymmetric geometry, i.e. (r, theta) coordinates, but subsequently we (Hernlund and Tackley, PEPI 2008) proposed using (r, phi) spherical annulus geometry and demonstrated its usefulness for low-viscosity-contrast calculations. 

When performing scaling studies in this geometry, however, strange results that did not match what is expected from Cartesian-geometry calculations were obtained when high-viscosity features (such as slabs) were present. It turns out that this is because the geometrical restriction forces deformation that is not present in 3 dimensions. Specifically, in a 2-D spherical approximation, a downwelling is forced to contract in the plane-perpendicular direction, requiring it to extend in the two in-plane directions. In other words, it is "squeezed" in the plane-perpendicular direction.  If the downwelling has a high viscosity, as a cold slab does, then it resists this forced deformation, sinking much more slowly than in three dimensions, in which it could sink with no deformation. This can cause unrealistic behaviour and scaling relationships for high viscosity contrasts. 

This problem can be solved by subtracting the geometrically-forced deformation ("squeezing") from the strain-rate tensor when calculating the stress tensor. Specifically, components of in-plane and plane-normal strain rate that are required by and proportional to the vertical (radial) velocity are subtracted, a procedure that is here termed "anti-squeeze". It is demonstrated here that this "anti-squeeze" correction results in sinking rates and scaling relationships that are similar to those in 3-D geometry whereas without it, abnormal and physically unrealistic results can be obtained for high viscosity contrasts. This correction has been used for 2-D geometries in the code StagYY (Tackley, PEPI 2008; Hernlund and Tackley, PEPI 2008) since 2010.

How to cite: Tackley, P.:  Adventures in Modelling Mantle Convection in a Two-Dimensional Spherical Annulus and Discovering the Need for "Anti-Squeeze”, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-19890, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-19890, 2025.

The science question: how can we use hydrological process knowledge to understand the timing and magnitude of seasonal streamflow in snow-influenced catchments.

What was known: in general, catchments with colder climates have later and larger seasonal streamflow peaks, because more snow tends to accumulate in colder catchments, and it melts later because the time when melt can occur is later in the year in colder climates. Numerical models with fine space and time resolution were able to resolve these phenomena, but there was no theory which directly linked long term climate to seasonal streamflow.

In 2009 I published a very simple deterministic theory of snow pack evolution. I tested it against snow observations at 6 locations in the western USA and it apparently worked well (although I later discovered that I'd been lucky).

In 2015 I used the snowmelt derived from this deterministic theory to predict timing and magnitude of seasonal streamflow. It did poorly, and revealed untested assumptions in my theory. I tried making the theory slightly more complicated by considering within-catchment variation in climate. This did not help.

In 2016 I created a stochastic version of the theory (a weakness identified in 2015), and then also considered the within-catchment variation in climate. It did better at reproducing measured snow storage, but did not help in understanding seasonal streamflow.

My next step will be to consider all forms of liquid water input, i.e. not just snowmelt but also rainfall.

What survived: I will continue to use the stochastic version of the theory as it is clearly an improvement. I will continue to examine whether within-catchment climate variability is important, but it seems unlikely after two negative results. But whether introducing liquid water input will be sufficient, who can say? I will also try to examine in more detail how it is that the finely-resolved numerical models can do an adequate job, but the theory cannot - it is in this gap that the answer probably lies.  However the models are very complicated, and it is not easy to get a good understanding of exactly what they are doing, even though we know which equations the are implementing.

How to cite: Woods, R.: Some Perfectly Reasonable Ideas that Didn’t Work: Snow Hydrology, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-20057, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-20057, 2025.

Climate models are not only numerical representations of scientific understanding but also human-written software, inherently subject to coding errors. While these errors may appear minor, they can have significant and unforeseen effects on the outcomes of complex, coupled models. Despite existing robust testing and documentation practices in many modeling centers, bugs’ broader implications are underexplored in the climate science literature.

We investigate a sea ice bug in the coupled atmosphere-ocean-sea ice model ICON, tracing its origin, effects, and implications. The bug stemmed from an incorrectly set logical flag, which caused the ocean to bypass friction from sea ice, leading to unrealistic surface velocities, especially in the presence of ocean eddies. We introduce a concise and visual approach to communicating bugs and conceptualize this case as part of a novel class of resolution-dependent bugs - long-standing bugs that emerge during the transition to high-resolution models, where kilometer-scale features are resolved.

By documenting this case, we highlight the broader relevance of addressing bugs and advocate for universal adoption of transparent bug documentation practices. This documentation complements the robust workflows already employed by many modeling centers and ensures lessons from individual cases benefit the wider climate modeling community.

How to cite: Gärtner, J., Proske, U., Brüggemann, N., Gutjahr, O., Haak, H., Putrasahan, D., and Wieners, K.-H.: A case for open communication of bugs in climate models, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-20866, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-20866, 2025.

Introduction

Global temperatures are rising due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Record-breaking temperatures observed in Europe during the summer of 2022 were associated with more than 60,000 heat-related deaths, with countries near the Mediterranean Sea, particularly Greece, being most affected. This study explores the death toll of prolonged heat periods in Greece, its spatial disparities, and how these patterns have changed over time.

Methods

We retrieved individual-level data on cause-specific mortality in Greece during 2000-2019 from the Hellenic Statistical Authority. The data included information on age, sex, cause of death, region of residence (Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics, level 3; NUTS3), and date of death. Daily maximum temperatures during 2000–2019 at 0.25° x 0.25° resolution were retrieved from ERA-5 reanalysis data. We considered six heatwave definitions, combining two durations (>2 and >3 days) and three temperature thresholds (90th, 95th, and 99th percentiles). A Bayesian hierarchical Poisson model was developed, accounting for spatiotemporal variation in heatwave effects using Gaussian priors. We also controlled for national holidays and population-weighted relative humidity.

Results

We observed 177,112 cardiovascular deaths and 39,646 respiratory deaths in individuals aged 65 and older in Greece during 2000–2019. A strong association was found between heatwaves and cardiovascular and respiratory mortality under all definitions. Evidence of spatial variation in heatwave effects was weak, as was evidence of temporal adaptation. However, for the most extreme heatwave definition, we observed an increasing trend in the effect of heat over the study period. Over 20 years, 6,926 (95% CI: 6,260–7,587) cardiorespiratory deaths were attributed to heatwaves, equating to approximately 350 deaths per year.

Conclusion

Heatwaves impose a significant mortality toll in Greece. While the effect of heatwaves on mortality has not changed over time in most heatwave definitions, the increasing trend of the effect of extreme heatwaves calls for immediate action to mitigate future risks.

Funding:

EUREST-RISE

How to cite: Konstantinoudis, G., Evangelopoulos, D., and Filippidis, F.: Estimating the temporal adaptation and spatial vulnerabilities of the heatwave mortality risk in Greece, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-3573, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-3573, 2025.

The Climate Litigation Network supports national organisations that are taking litigation action against their governments in respect of the adequacy and implementation of national climate policies and targets. This presentation will provide an overview of the role of science in climate cases that challenge governments’ overall emissions reductions (“framework cases”) – of which there are more than 100 globally.

In April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued its first decision relating to climate change. Critically, the ECtHR found that the Swiss government had failed to put in place an adequate domestic regulatory framework to tackle climate change and, as such, was failing to uphold the right to private and family life under the European Convention of Human Rights. This decision will have immense implications for framework cases across Europe and beyond. In particular, in respect of how evidence and science will be used to assess the adequacy of governments’ actions in the context of human rights.

Specifically, one of the key issues with the Swiss government’s approach was that it failed to quantify national greenhouse emissions limitations through a carbon budget. The ECtHR’s assessment shows that states must set their emissions reductions targets in relation to the global remaining carbon budget, and must have regulatory frameworks in place to ensure such targets are met. Given that the global remaining carbon budget for 1.5C is almost exhausted, there will be a pressing need for scientific research to explore how government action can be tracked and verified to be compatible with the Paris Agreement and human rights obligations.

This presentation will highlight the current deployment of science in climate cases against governments and explore new frontiers in light of the ECtHR decision.

How to cite: Williamson, A.: Science and evidence for framework climate litigation , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-3811, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-3811, 2025.

The interface between climate science and legal practice, particularly litigation, is of increasing relevance. Here we share our experiences from being involved in a number of legal cases over the past five years. Based on our experience, we discuss numerous challenges that are faced at this interface. These include presenting information in a way that a court can understand (and is typically very different from presenting information for scientific colleagues), the particular needs of litigation and their synergies and conflicts with scientific methods and uncertainty and the completely different timelines and pressure between the scientific and litigious environments. We outline various ways we have approached these challenges and highlight areas where we have not yet seen solutions. We conclude by laying out our view of the new research required to serve the science-litigation interface and some initial ideas of a research agenda to tackle this research.

How to cite: Nicholls, Z., Schleussner, C.-F., and Pelz, S.: Navigating the science-litigation interface, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-5810, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-5810, 2025.

How to cite: Theokritoff, E., Sparks, N., Otto, F., Rogelj, J., and Toumi, R.: Tracking losses and damages from extreme weather events, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6900, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6900, 2025.

Climate change attribution science describes with increasing precision how anthropogenic activities are affecting environments around the world. In legal disputes over corporations' and governments' responsibility for climate change, attribution science plays a key role in evaluating defendants' contribution to climate change impacts. This paper examines how attribution science is used to establish causal chains in climate litigation. While scientific methodologies are advancing rapidly, questions remain over how legal standards of proof should be applied to the evidence. If ongoing cases are successful in using attribution science to establish legal causation, they could set significant precedents for holding major greenhouse gas emitters to account.

How to cite: Walker-Crawford, N., Petkov, N., Reyes, J., and Stuart-Smith, R.: Attribution in action: Causal chains in climate litigation, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-8468, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-8468, 2025.

In light of seeing temperatures now closely approach the international targets set by the 2015 Paris Agreement for limiting global warming, in particular the 1.5 °C target, an accurate and reliable tracking of changes in the global surface temperature is critical. We introduce a comprehensive benchmark time series for global surface air temperature (GSAT) extending from 1850 to 2024, complemented by a projection up to 2034 and scenarios through to 2050. Building on and advanced from widely recognized global mean surface temperature (GMST) records used by the IPCC, we established a detailed and traceable GSAT annual and 20-year-mean time record in this form, referenced to the conventional preindustrial level (mean 1850-1900). Our record indicates an increase of the 20-year-mean GSAT change to 1.40 [1.30-1.49] °C by 2024 and a subsequent exceedance of the 1.5 °C threshold by 2028 [2025-2032] (uncertainty ranges denote a 90% confidence interval). Given this imminence of 1.5 °C, we propose a new classification system to gauge, with regular updates, the compliance with the Paris goals (1.5 °C goal, well-below-2 °C goal; or exceedance up to 2 °C or even beyond). These improvements in compliance/exceedance quantification may help policymakers, the judiciary and the general public to obtain standardized and thus more reliable assessments of the degree of compliance with the Paris climate targets over the coming years and decades.

How to cite: Kirchengast, G. and Pichler, M.: Clearer metrics for the Paris climate targets: A new compliance quantification approach, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-8486, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-8486, 2025.

Typically, responsibility for impacts from aggregate global GHG emissions is attributed proportional to an actor's share of emissions. This way, individual actors are only attributed comparatively small shares of any caused harm and can point to the aggregated responsibility of others far exceeding their own when pressed to take action. This fragmentation of responsibility leads to profound challenges in establishing climate accountability based on principles of international environmental law.

The EUCHR ruling in the Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v. Switzerland case states that "each State has its own responsibilities within its own territorial jurisdiction in respect of climate change." Following this argument, we propose an analysis framework to take states' heightened mandate of care towards their own citizens and territories into account, introducing an alternative line of differentiation by experienced impacts.

Using the fast climate impact emulator RIME-X for impact attribution, we quantify national shares of global climate impacts exploring different impact allocation regimes (e.g. area, population, or GDP). We introduce the responsibility-to-harm ratio as the ratio of the share in historic emissions vs. the share in experienced impacts on a national basis. This identifies the percentage of self-inflicted harm vs. harm caused by the conduct of others.

This weighting of national emissions by impacts enables a prioritisation of a state's accountability for domestic impacts. It, thus, partially counteracts the fragmentation of responsibility, making principles of international environmental law more easily actionable. It also provides a simple metric for the inequitable distribution between responsibility for climate change and the impacts it causes, contributing to the quantification of international climate injustice.

How to cite: Högner, A., Nauels, A., Nicholls, Z., Schwind, N., and Schleussner, C.-F.: Establishing climate accountability through attribution of climate impacts to GHG emissions within territorial jurisdictions, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-9647, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-9647, 2025.

The Paris Agreement’s fallback temperature goal, keeping global warming well below 2^oC, is typically interpreted as staying below 2^oC with a specified probability, with legal disputes over what the probability should be. Such framing is not futureproof because uncertainty decreases with time, systematically weakening the target towards allowing temperatures to approach 2C itself. We show the science and legal discussion available at the Paris Agreement’s signing guides an interpretation using a level of conserved median warming, with a minimum 66% chance of staying below 2^oC translating to 1.8^oC of expected median warming and a more defensible 83% chance giving 1.6^oC.

How to cite: Lamboll, R. and Rogelj, J.: How below is well-below? Future-proofing interpretations of the Paris Agreement, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12279, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12279, 2025.

Under current scenario projections of global climate ambition, we expect to exceed a 1.5°C consistent remaining carbon budget this decade. At the same time, many countries have already accrued ‘carbon debt’, reflecting historical emissions exceeding their ‘fair share’ of the remaining carbon budget. The ‘carbon debt’ concept can be extended to forward-looking scenario-based assessments, by comparing expected future emissions trajectories with current remaining budget allocations (or debts) for a given temperature target. At the year of net-zero carbon emissions, we term this the ‘net-zero carbon debt’. This measure can be used to assign responsibilities for expected temperature exceedance and related domestic climate impacts, capturing both intra- and inter-generational inequities. Such an approach ensures that ‘fair share’ considerations persist even if a remaining carbon budget is initially exhausted, linking expected emissions pathways with corresponding carbon drawdown obligations and responsibilities for realised impacts. We apply this approach to examine recent downscaled scenario projections for European Union member countries, quantifying the expected carbon drawdown obligations and responsibility for climate impacts that they imply. We then discuss the value and limitations of such assessments in informing domestic considerations of fairness thus far reliant on a rapidly dwindling remaining carbon budget. In summary, this work examines a new forward-looking domestic application of ‘fair share’ considerations in a manner robust to exhaustion of a 1.5°C consistent remaining carbon budget.

How to cite: Pelz, S., Ganti, G., and Schluessner, C.-F.: Towards forward-looking carbon debt assessments to comprehensively capture state responsibility for climate change, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-13353, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-13353, 2025.

Climate change is already causing widespread negative impacts across the world, including by increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as heatwaves, droughts and wildfires. With further warming, children and young people will be exposed to an ever-greater number of risks from anthropogenic climate change. Building on previous research quantifying lifetime exposure to climate extremes [1,2], we present a flexible framework, demographics4climate,  that can be applied on any climate dataset to quantify lifetime exposure to climate risks in a spatially explicit and age-specific way. We present the application of the framework on a case study by estimating the lifetime exposure to high and very high fire weather conditions in Portugal for different generations and under different demographic and warming scenarios. We discuss the relevance of this analysis for the climate lawsuit Duarte Agostinho and others v. Portugal and others (recently dismissed from the European Court of Human Rights), as well as the relevance of the framework for child and youth-led climate lawsuits more broadly. We propose that this framework, including possible extensions upstream towards emission sources and downstream towards impacts, could provide meaningful science-based contributions to the evidentiary base of child and youth-led climate lawsuits.  

[1] Thiery, W. et al. Intergenerational inequities in exposure to climate extremes. Science 374, 158–160 (2021).

[2]  Grant, L. et al. Global emergence of unprecedented lifetime exposure to climate extremes. Nature, accepted. 

How to cite: Pietroiusti, R., Savaresi, A., Adelman, S., and Thiery, W.: Quantifying intergenerational inequity in lifetime climate risk as evidence in child and youth-led lawsuits , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-16281, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-16281, 2025.

Current assessments of "fair shares" of global mitigation efforts have tended to focus on the responsibility of States. However, recent climate litigation has started to focus on the responsibility of non-state actors, which should ideally be informed by quantitative fair share assessments. Here, we explore a case study of large investor-owned carbon majors, which were responsible for 24% of global fossil CO₂ emissions between 1990 and 2018. Drawing on commonly invoked principles of climate justice, we suggest that large investor-owned “carbon majors” should be assigned Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS) investment responsibilities. This responsibility is in addition to their primary responsibility to adopt a stringent decarbonisation trajectory consistent with the Paris Agreement objectives. DACCS is a potentially important component of mitigation portfolios consistent with global climate objectives and has a low land footprint relative to other carbon dioxide removal options. However, DACCS is in its formative phase, the early and expensive stage of technology deployment. Significant near-term investments are necessary to buy-down the cost of the technology so that it can play a cost-efficient role in future mitigation. We assess the level of investments necessary to move DACCS out of its niche phase (32 billion USD central estimate, with interquartile range 6 – 92 billion USD). Beyond that, about 250 billion USD in investments (central estimate, interquartile range 135 – 313 billion USD) may be required to buy-down the costs to 100 USD / tonne of CO₂ captured. We assign responsibilities for this deployment to investor-owned carbon majors, finding that the ten highest emitting carbon majors should bear responsibility for around 17 billion USD (central estimate) in investments to contribute to moving DACCS out of its formative phase. When we also account for the buy-down cost to achieve the 100 USD/tonne goal, the scale of this responsibility may double if these company emissions grow at the same rate as global stated policies. Adopting a decarbonisation trajectory in line with a net zero emissions scenario significantly reduces this ongoing responsibility, reiterating the importance of robust company-level strategies aligned with the 1.5°C warming limit of the Paris Agreement.

How to cite: Kellou, D., Pratama, Y., Zuniga, C., Riany, F., Gidden, M. J., Heede, R., Ganti, G., and Schleussner, C.-F.: Evaluating the responsibility of investor-owned carbon majors to invest in direct air carbon capture and storage, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18077, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18077, 2025.

Parties to the Paris Agreement are committed to submit five-yearly climate pledges, known as Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs), that describe their intended climate change mitigation actions for the next 5 to 10 years. The Paris Agreement mandates that subsequent NDCs represent a progression compared to earlier NDCs, be a country’s highest possible ambition, and reflect a country’s common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities in the light of different national circumstances. While there is a rich literature on interpreting and operationalising equity and fairness in international climate policy, scholarship on interpreting and operationalising the norms of progression and highest possible ambition is largely absent. In addition, recent literature indicates that because of insufficient past action, several countries find themselves in a position where even their deepest possible emissions reductions do not result in equitable contribution when considered in an appropriate historical context. Here, we will present a framework for the operationalisation of highest possible ambition in NDCs. While this framework is applicable to all countries, it is also presented as a way to inform minimum requirements for the level of ambition of climate change mitigation action under the Paris Agreement by historically high emitters.

How to cite: Rogelj, J. and Schönfeld, J. K.: Highest possible ambition as a minimum requirement for historical high emitters under the Paris Agreement, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-21225, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-21225, 2025.

Mercury's magnetosphere is more dynamic than Earth's due to its proximity to the Sun, and it is subject to a lower Mach number solar wind. Regarding the solar wind interaction with Mercury, we are interested in the configurations of Mercury’s magnetosphere and the energy transport under various solar wind conditions. First, this study examines the potential impact of low Mach number solar wind on Mercury's bow shock and the resulting effects on the magnetosphere. To analyze the variability of Mercury's bow shock in response to solar wind properties, this study combines observations by the Helios data with theoretical solutions and MHD simulations. The results show that when Mercury encounters solar wind with an extremely low Mach number, its bow shock is expected to become more flattened, further from the planet, and may even disappear completely. Our other focus is on the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI) that occurs at the magnetopause, which plays a crucial role in the energy transfer and momentum coupling process between the solar wind and Mercury's magnetospheres. We conducted MHD simulations based on boundary conditions and plasma parameters from a global hybrid simulation of the MESSENGER’s first flyby in 2008. Given the lack of comprehensive plasma observations of Mercury's magnetosphere, we examined two scenarios: one with a heavily mass-loaded magnetosphere and another with a weakly mass-loaded magnetosphere. Our findings show that the KHI in a heavily loaded magnetosphere results in a more turbulent magnetopause, with nonlinear fast-mode plane waves expanding away from the magnetopause. The momentum and energy flux quantified from our simulations reveals that the KHI with a heavily loaded magnetosphere can efficiently transport momentum and energy away from the magnetopause in the presence of the fast-mode plane waves. In such a scenario, observed in the inner magnetosphere, the momentum flux can reach about 0.5 % of the initial solar-wind dynamic pressure; the energy flux can be 10^-2 erg/cm²/s, and the energy density is about 1.5 %-3.0 % of the initial solar-wind energy.

How to cite: Lai, S.-H., Wang, Y.-C., Yang, Y.-H., and Ip, W.-H.: Solar wind- Mercury's magnetosphere interaction by data exploration and MHD simulations, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-124, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-124, 2025.

Ultralow frequency (ULF) waves are found in certain parts of the upstream region of planetary bow shocks. These waves are believed to be driven by the interaction of solar wind ions reflected from the bow shock with the original solar wind beam. The region where ULF waves can possibly be observed is then determined by the regions accessible to the reflected ions within the foreshock (defined as the region magnetically connected to the bow shock). The boundary of the region where ULF waves are observed at Earth is known to also depend on the growth rate of the waves and on the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). To identify the ULF foreshock boundary at Mercury, we use MESSENGER observations to investigate the presence or absence of clear ULF wave activity upstream of the bow shock. The boundary of regions where ULF waves are present, as parametrized by the angle θ_Bn between the IMF and the bow shock normal, is identified and the dependence on the IMF is studied. The connection to higher-frequency whistler waves emissions is also investigated. The results are compared to results from other planets, and their connection to other upstream phenomena is discussed. Finally, open questions that can be addressed by the upcoming BepiColombo mission are discussed.

How to cite: Karlsson, T., Blanco-Cano, X., Hietala, H., Bergman, S., Plaschke, F., and Wong Chan, T. K.: Investigation of the Ultralow Frequency (ULF) foreshock boundary at Mercury, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-1275, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-1275, 2025.

Upstream region of the Mercury magnetosphere is of great interest in advancing our knowledge on the plasma waves and instabilities. The interplanetary magnetic field is nearly aligned with the solar wind stream at the distances of Mercury to the Sun with a Parker spiral angle of only about 20 degrees. A one-dimensional beam plasma system is likely realized ahead of or around the Mercury. The solar wind plasma streams away from the Sun and the beam ions (either shock-reflected ions or pickup ions) stream against the sola wind, forming a naturaly laboratory of head-on beam collider experiments at an energy scale of keV (through the electromagnetic interactions without binary collisions). We study the dielectric response of the beam plasma and develop various scenarios of beam instabilities relevant to the Mercury upstream waves in a systematic way including the right-hand resonant instability and the pickup ion cyclotron waves. Our wave model has the potential to serve as an analysis tool to estimate the beam velocity and the flow speed from the resonance frequency, particularly useful to in-situ magnetic field data analyses for MESSENGER and BepiColombo measurements.

How to cite: Narita, Y., Schmid, D., and Motschmann, U.: Mercury upstream region as a natural laboratory of beam plasma experiments, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-2481, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-2481, 2025.

Abstract

Anomalous reconnection layer (ARL) usually appears near the magnetopause when the solar wind is in low Alfvén Mach number. The structure of an ARL is similar to the magnetic reconnection outflow region, i.e., a decrease in the total magnetic field and an increase in the high-energy ion flux. The ARL is seldom observed in the Earth’s magnetospheric environment because the solar wind at Earth is mostly in high Alfvén Mach number regime. According to previous observations, the solar wind at Mercury is usually in low Alfvén Mach number. Therefore, we assume that such an ARL can be observed frequently near Mercury’s magnetopause. To test this assumption, we examined the magnetic fields and ion fluxes obtained at the Mercury’s magnetosheath by the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft. With 120 events of ARLs we identified from MESSENGER’s data, we validate the assumption that ARLs frequently appear on Mercury. These ARL events were extracted from the list of MESSENGER bowshock and magnetopause crossing times compiled by Winslow et al. [2013]. The number of the ARL events found on Mercury is much larger than those found on Earth. The thickness of each ARL was estimated from the data, finding that the ARLs occupy, on average, one-fifth the thickness of the magnetosheath for Mercury. This work helps deepen our understanding of the comparative magnetospheric environment of Mercury and Earth.

References

Winslow, R. M., B. J. Anderson, C. L. Johnson, J. A. Slavin, H. Korth, M. E. Purucker, D. N. Baker, and S. C. Solomon (2013), Mercury's magnetopause and bow shock from MESSENGER Magnetometer observations, J. Geophys. Res. Space Physics, 118, 2213–2227, doi:10.1002/jgra.50237.

How to cite: Chiu, I.-H., Shue, J.-H., Hasegawa, H., Zhong, J., and Hirahara, M.: A Survey of the Anomalous Reconnection Layer on Mercury, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-3409, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-3409, 2025.

Mercury’s tenuous atmosphere leaves its surface exposed to continuous meteoroid bombardment, which vaporizes surface material and enriches the exosphere with various species. Ground-based observations (Bida et al., 2000; Killen et al., 2005) first detected calcium in Mercury’s exosphere; subsequent measurements by the MASCS spectrometer onboard MESSENGER confirmed that these Ca atoms can reach remarkably high temperatures (12,000–20,000 K, and occasionally up to ~70,000 K) despite Mercury’s surface being only a few hundred K (Killen et al., 2005). The Ca corona also displays distinct temporal and spatial patterns, suggesting that meteoroid impact vaporization—especially from the 2P/Encke meteor stream—is a significant source of these superthermal Ca atoms. It has been proposed that Ca-bearing molecules, such as CaO, are vaporized by impacts and subsequently dissociated into Ca atoms. In this work, we employ a time-dependent Monte Carlo model to simulate the expansion of gases released by impact vaporization, incorporating multiple species and photodissociation processes to determine the spatial distribution of fragments. These results will aid in interpreting future observations by the BepiColombo mission.

How to cite: Lai, I.-L., Hsu, C.-Y., and Ip, W.-H.:  Impact Vaporization and Mercury’s Superthermal Exosphere, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-3985, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-3985, 2025.

Analyses of topographic roughness at various baselines are useful for studying surface evolution on airless bodies. Using data from the Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) onboard Space ENvironment, Geochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission, roughness distribution on Mercury has been investigated at baselines down to sub-km scale [e.g., 1]. However, due to the eccentric orbit of MESSENGER and the limited ranging distance of MLA, laser ranging observations are limited to the north polar region. In addition, previous image-based digital elevation cannot be used to quantify roughness at km scale due to limited spatial resolution [2]. Therefore, roughness at km-scale baselines has not been mapped below 45°N latitude on Mercury.

To complement the lack of roughness data in the equatorial region, this study analyzes the latest global DEM (version 20240927) produced as described in Preusker et al. [3]. The effective resolution of this DEM has been estimated to be 5 km [e.g., 3]. Focusing on topographic curvatures at baselines of 5–10 km and their interquartile ranges at each latitude and longitude, we mapped roughness distribution at latitudes of 66°N–66°S to examine correlations between roughness and geologic features.

Our new roughness map shows several anomalous features correlated with Mercury’s geology. The most obvious feature is a clear distinction between smooth plains and rough intercrater plains. Our roughness map shows roughness differences similar to those reported by previous works for the northern hemisphere [1]. In addition, our analysis shows a certain variation in roughness among the smooth plains. For example, the Caloris smooth plains show higher roughness than other smooth plains due to superposing grabens in the Caloris basin. Another characteristic is high-roughness anomalies around young basins. The areas of continuous ejecta have higher roughness than the surroundings due to their freshness. The roughness values do not simply decrease with increasing distance from the basin centers but show local minima adjacent to their rims, originating from coverage of impact melt and/or deficit of secondary craters.

Furthermore, a comparison with the latest catalog of tectonic landforms [4] shows an absence of contractional landforms at high roughness anomalies. The lobate scarps and ridges tend to be distributed outside rough regions like the young basin ejecta. This correlation may suggest superposition of younger basin ejecta on older tectonic features, difficulty of tectonic landform detection on rough terrains, and/or less efficient formation of contractional landforms due to possibly high crustal porosity. These possibilities imply that the extent of Mercury’s radial contraction may have been underestimated due to the obscuration of old contractional landforms. In the presentation, we will discuss possible extent of corrections to global contraction estimates to account for the roughness effect.

References:

[1] Kreslavsky M. A. et al. (2014) GRL, 41, 8245–8251.

[2] Florinsky I. V. (2018) Planetary and Space Science, 151, 56–70.

[3] Preusker F. et al. (2017) Planetary and Space Science, 142, 26–37.

[4] Klimczak C. et al. (2023) 54th LPSC, Abstract #1122.

Acknowledgment: This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP22K21344 and JSPS Overseas Research Fellowship.

How to cite: Nishiyama, G., Preusker, F., Broquet, A., Stark, A., and Hussmann, H.: Roughness map for the equatorial region of Mercury and its implication to surface evolution, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-4305, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-4305, 2025.

Between 1974 and 1975, the Mariner 10 spacecraft investigated Mercury's environment during three flybys. By using its ultraviolet spectrometer, it identified helium, atomic oxygen, and hydrogen atoms in Mercury’s exosphere. Interestingly, no H₂ molecules were detected during these flybys. Based on data from the occultation instrument, an upper limit for H₂ surface density was established from the detection threshold of about 1.4 x 10⁷ cm^-3. Here, we present the first in-situ detection of H₂ molecules in the Hermean Exosphere, identified through magnetic field and plasma measurements obtained from the MESSENGER spacecraft. The data was analyzed for ion cyclotron waves produced by H₂⁺ pick-up ions. Our findings reveal a much lower dayside surface density of approximately 2000 cm^-3, significantly below the Mariner 10 detection threshold. Furthermore, the observed atomic hydrogen in the exosphere cannot be entirely attributed to H₂ dissociation. Instead, it likely arises from a combination of thermal hydrogen atoms, charge exchange processes, space weather effects, H₂ dissociation and micrometeorite impacts.

How to cite: Weichbold, F., Schmid, D., Lammer, H., Volwerk, M., Scherf, M., Erkaev, N., Varsani, A., and Simon-Wedlund, C.: Insights into Mercury's Hydrogen Exosphere: Characterization and First Detection of H₂ Molecules, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6716, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6716, 2025.

On 8 January 2025, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission flew by Mercury for the sixth time at an altitude of 295 km. The spacecraft took on a unique route through Mercury’s magnetic and particle environment, crossing the equator opposite the Sun on Mercury’s night side before flying over the planet’s north pole. During eclipse, in the cold shadow of the planet, as well as above the northern pole the spacecraft passed through regions where charged particles precipitate from the planet’s magnetic tail and from the solar wind towards its surface. We will detail the original electron observations obtained by the Mercury Electron Analyzer during Mercury’s sixth flyby, and compare and contrast them with electron observations obtained during previous BepiColombo flybys. All together, these new observations will provide new insights into the diversity of structures observed in these regions and the underlying mechanisms responsible for their formation and dynamics.

How to cite: André, N., Sauvaud, J.-A., Saito, Y., Rojo, M., Aizawa, S., Fedorov, A., Penou, E., Barthe, A., Yokota, S., Nemecek, Z., Safrankova, J., Marcucci, M. F., Liu, Z.-Y., Persson, M., Hadid, L., Delcourt, D., Harada, Y., Fraenz, M., Krupp, N., and Murakami, G.: Observations from the Mercury Electron Analyzer onboard BepiColombo during its sixth Mercury flyby, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6945, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6945, 2025.

Planetary magnetospheres exhibit significant twisting of the magnetotail with increasing downstream distances.
However, Mercury's tail twist observed by MESSENGER indicate a rather small twist of up to 3 degrees.
Here, we model Mercury's magnetotail response to different Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) directions and determine what MPO and Mio might observe in their orbital phase with the hybrid model AIKEF.
Our hybrid model results indicate that Mercury's magnetotail topology exhibits a similar small twist at MPO altitudes, comparable to MESSENGER results.
The tail twist observed by Mio, however, indicates a strong dependency on the upstream IMF direction, becoming much more Earth-like.
In addition, kinetic effects warp and bend the neutral sheet significantly, disallowing easy determinations of the twist angles.

How to cite: Exner, W. and Romanelli, N.: Mercury's Nightside Magnetosphere: Predictions for Mercury's Magnetotail Twist at the Orbits of MPO and Mio, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6978, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6978, 2025.

Mercury, the innermost planet in our solar system, offers a unique natural laboratory for planetary science, particularly with its unexpectedly high concentration of volatile elements and the presence of volatile-related geological features. This study investigates the morphology and ages of craters at Mercury's north and south poles to understand the distribution of water ice within these regions. Utilizing high-resolution images from the MESSENGER mission and various digital elevation models, we measured crater depth and diameter and conducted crater size-frequency distribution analyses. Our findings reveal significant differences in the depth-to-diameter (d/D) ratios and absolute ages of craters between the poles. North Pole craters are generally younger, deeper, and smaller in diameter, while South Pole craters are older, shallower, and larger in diameter. The Northern Smooth Plains at the North Pole, formed by extensive volcanic activity, exhibit fewer impact craters, suggesting a younger surface. In contrast, the South Pole's heavily cratered terrain displays significant weathering and thicker regolith layers. The study also highlights the uneven distribution of water ice, likely influenced by crater morphology and the presence of insulating layers. This research provides insights into the geological history of Mercury and the processes shaping its polar regions, enhancing our understanding of the planet's volatile content and its implications for habitability in the inner solar system.

How to cite: Wang, X.: Asymmetry distribution of craters on north and south poles of Mercury, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-7516, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-7516, 2025.

Kelvin-Helmholtz (K-H) instability plays an important role in transporting mass, momentum and energy at the magnetopause of planetary magnetospheres. Previous studies have shown that the K-H waves on Mercury’s magnetosphere exhibit clear dawn-dusk asymmetry, i.e., they are frequently observed on the duskside magnetopause but rarely on the dawnside. In this presentation, we first present a case study of K-H waves on the dawnside of Mercury’s magnetosphere and a  statistical study of K-H waves from 2014 to 2015 based on MSEEENGER’s observations.

In the case study, the K-H waveforms on the dawnside side were divided into linear waves and nonlinear waves by modeling the magnetopause as Harris current sheet. The 30mHz compressional ultra-low-frequency waves and ion-Bernstein modes were observed in the magnetosphere adjacent to these K-H waves, which are interpreted as the evidence of energy and mass transport by K-H waves. However, only a few magnetopause oscillations were observed on the duskside during the same MESSENGER’s orbit under similar interplanetary magnetic field conditions. No compressional waves or ion-Berstein modes were observed associated with these oscillations. 

Our statistical study found that K-H waves were equably prevalent on both the dawnside and duskside, which are different from the previously reported dawn-dusk asymmetry. We categorized our cases into linear and nonlinear stages and analyzed their interplanetary magnetic field conditions. Our results provide  insights into the study of K-H instability at Mercury, especially the mechanism of asymmetry and transport of plasma and energy.

How to cite: Li, R., Sun, W., and Fu, S.: Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability Observations on Mercury’s magnetopause: MESSENGER Study, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-7859, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-7859, 2025.

Mercury’s intrinsic magnetic field is remarkably weak, resulting in a small magnetosphere. Due to the proximity of Mercury to the Sun and lack of a protective ionosphere, Mercury’s magnetosphere endures the most intense solar wind flux and severe space weather in the solar system. The interaction between the solar wind and Mercury’s magnetosphere is dominated by dynamic kinetic processes, such as exceptionally high magnetic reconnection rates. Mercury’s magnetosphere is also closely coupled to its surface, making it highly susceptible to extreme solar events, including Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). To explore this complex and dynamic environment, we utilize Amitis (https://www.amitiscode.com), an advanced 3D hybrid-kinetic plasma model, to simulate the interaction between the solar wind and Mercury’s magnetosphere under conditions of extreme solar activity. Our study reveals how Mercury’s magnetosphere dynamically responds to intense solar events and provides detailed insights into the energy and flux of solar wind plasma impacting the planet’s surface. By examining these interactions, we aim to better understand the mechanisms governing Mercury’s unique space weather environment and their implications for surface processes.

How to cite: Fatemi, S., Szabo, P. S., Poppe, A. R., Raines, J. M., and Millilo, A.: Extreme Space Weather at Mercury: Investigating Magnetospheric and Surface Interactions Using Hybrid Simulations, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-8218, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-8218, 2025.

On Mercury, faculae are high-albedo, spectrally red, deposits originating from explosive volcanic eruptions (Kerber et al., 2009) whose source are likely rimless depressions. These depressions are usually located in the center of the facula and interpreted to be volcanic vents. In this work we analyzed the Agwo facula, sited in the western margin of Caloris basin (22.39°N, 146.16°E). We performed a detailed geomorphological map of the area using MDIS derived mosaics with a spatial resolution ranging from 20 m/pixel to 28 m/pixel and with different illumination conditions. Additionally, a BDR (Basemap reduced Data Record) MDIS mosaic, with a resolution of 166 m/pixel, was used as a basemap. MDIS WAC color maps, based on the reflectance at 750 nm and the VIS slope between 480 and 830 nm, respectively, were also used as part of the analysis. These latter maps helped determine the areal extent of the pyroclastic deposits. Finally, a DTM of the region, derived from MDIS images using the technique of stereophotoclinometry (SPC) and with a spatial resolution of 20 m/pixel, helped us to better characterized the facula’s topography. The geomorphological map highlights that Agwo facula experienced several explosive episodes. In particular, through the cross-cutting relationship observed among the pits, at least eight eruptive events have been distinguished. The terrain within the pits shows different surface texture and albedo, that allowed the distinction of several geological units: from the oldest and smoother surfaces to the younger and rougher textured surfaces. Therefore, the morphological and spectral characteristics of pits suggest that Agwo facula is the result of multiple eruptions, which likely occurred at different times, contributing to the better understanding of the formation of this feature.

References:

Kerber, L., Head, J.W., Solomon, S.C., Murchie, S.L., Blewett, D.T., Wilson, L., 2009. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 285, 263–271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2009.04.037.

Acknowledgment

This research was supported by the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) in Bern, through ISSI International Team project #552 (Wide-ranging characterization of explosive volcanism on Mercury: origin, properties, and modifications of pyroclastic deposits). Contributions by D. Domingue and J. Weirich were also supported by NASA’s Solar System Working’s grant 80NSSC21K0165.

How to cite: Giacomini, L., Galiano, A., Galluzzi, V., Munaretto, G., Rothery, D. A., Domingue, D., Weirich, J., Jozwiak, L. M., D' Amore, M., and Carli, C.: High resolution geomorphological analysis of Agwo facula (Mercury), EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-8261, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-8261, 2025.

The BepiColombo mission to Mercury consists of two spacecraft MPO and MIO and was launched in 2018. During the cruise phase towards the target the spacecraft performed its last close flyby near Mercury on 8 Jan 2025 (MSB6). This was the last flyby before going into orbit around the innermost planet at the end of 2026. We report on particle results from the Mass Spectrum Analyzer MSA on MIO and the Planetary Ion Camera PICAM onboard MPO together with magnetic field data MAG and hybrid simulation during this flyby. PICAM measured solar wind upstream and recorded the magnetospheric and magnetosheath plasma at various energies while MSA recorded the ion composition during the flyby including H+, He++, He+, Na+ and other heavy ions. Most of Na+ was seen near closest approach in the shadow of the planet which agrees well with AIKEF hybrid model results.

How to cite: Krupp, N., Fränz, M., Teubenbacher, D., Exner, W., Heyner, D., Hadid, L. Z., Varsani, A., Harada, Y., Aizawa, S., Andre, N., Milillo, A., Saito, Y., Delcourt, D., Prencipe, F., Krüger, H., Laky, G., Katra, B., Verdeil, C., Yokota, S., and Fiethe, B.: Observations of Mercury’s plasma environment along BepiColombo’s sixth swingby on 8 Jan 2025, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-8338, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-8338, 2025.

Plasma high-speed jets are common in Earth’s magnetosheath, and they significantly perturb the magnetosheath and affect the magnetosphere. The space environment of Mercury, characterized by the bow shock, magnetosheath, and magnetosphere, shares many similarities with that of Earth, so high-speed jets may also be formed in Mercury’s magnetosheath. Here we examine the formation of magnetosheath jets using a three-dimensional global hybrid simulation. The simulation results demonstrate that magnetosheath jets may be formed by the passage of upstream compressive structures through the bow shock. The number and size of the jets are significantly smaller than those at Earth because of Mercury’s smaller magnetosphere size. Under the impact of magnetosheath jets, Mercury’s magnetopause undergoes significant deformation up to 0.19 R_M(R_Mis Mercury’s radius). These simulation results are expected to be tested by the BepiColombo mission. 

How to cite: Guo, J., Lu, S., Lu, Q., Slavin, J., Sun, W., and Zhong, J.: Three-dimensional Global Hybrid Simulation of Magnetosheath Jets at Mercury , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-9676, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-9676, 2025.

Thanks to MESSENGER observations, we know that Mercury’s magnetosphere is highly dynamic, and it can be fully reconfigured in a few minutes, with strong influences of external conditions.

BepiColombo mission includes a comprehensive payload for the investigation of the environment. During the cruise phase, not all the sensors can operate for science measurements, however, during the swing-bys the magnetic field and particles in Mercury’s magnetosphere are successfully measured by the MPO and Mio payloads. In this presentation, we will focus on Mercury’s swing-by 2 (MSB2) observations in comparison with other swing-bys. During the MSB2, BepiColombo passed from dusk in the tail toward dawn in the dayside in a nearly equatorial path. The IMF turned from northward to southward during the crossing. The dayside magnetopause boundary was clearly observed, while the bow shock crossing was not clearly distinguishable. Close to the planet signatures of circulating high energy ions have been seen. While upstream the bow shock, foreshock ions have been observed.

How to cite: Milillo, A., Varsani, A., Heyner, D., Hadid, L. Z., Baumjohann, W., Barabash, S., and Andrè, N. and the MPO/SERENA, MPO-MAG, Mio-MGF, Mio/MPPE-MEA and MSA teams: Mercury’s Environment Observed by BepiColombo during the Second Mercury’s Swing-by, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10436, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10436, 2025.

BepiColombo, the joint ESA-JAXA mission on route to the planet Mercury, was launched in 2018. After eight successful planetary flybys, the spacecraft had its final Mercury flyby on 08 Jan 2025. The PICAM (Planetary Ion Camera) instrument, part of the SERENA package, was operational from 48 hours prior to the closest encounter, until 48 hours afterwards. This ion sensor successfully monitored the upstream solar wind, as well as the magnetospheric and planetary ions at the vicinity of Mercury. Near the planet, PICAM operated in mass spectrometry mode using its Hadamard Time-of-Flight gating, which is a novel technique to improve the observations of low-density ions. We present the analysis of the ion species detected at Mercury’s environment.

How to cite: Varsani, A., Lammer, H., Milillo, A., Schmid, D., Heyner, D., Raines, J., Laky, G., Krupp, N., Jeszenszky, H., Giono, G., Volwerk, M., Teubenbacher, D., Nakamura, R., Orsini, S., Livi, S., Barabash, S., Fraenz, M., Krueger, H., Aronica, A., and Kazakov, A.: Ion species of Mercury’s 6th flyby, detected by PICAM's Hadamard mass spectrometry, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11316, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11316, 2025.

The MESSENGER spacecraft, which orbited Mercury from 2011 to early 2015, provided crucial insights into the structure and dynamics of Mercury's magnetosphere, including the identification of the Low Latitude Boundary Layer (LLBL). LLBL forms a mixed region of the magnetospheric and magnetosheath plasma, playing a crucial role in transferring mass and energy from the solar wind into the planetary magnetosphere. A statistical study by Liljablad et al. (2015) examined the properties of the LLBL during MESSENGER's first orbital year. More recently, the BepiColombo spacecraft crossed the LLBL in Mercury's duskside magnetosphere during its third Mercury flyby in 2023. Using the Mercury Plasma Particle Experiment (MPPE) instruments, specifically the ion analyzer (MIA) and mass spectrum analyzer (MSA), clear ion energy dispersion ranging from a few eV/e to 40 keV/e was observed (Harada et al., 2024; Hadid et al., 2024).

This study aims to build on these findings by conducting a comprehensive analysis of the LLBL using all MESSENGER data collected throughout its orbital period. The Magnetic field (MAG) and ion data (FIPS) revealed 351 LLBL cases. Considering the energy variation of the maximum differential flux of protons from the magnetopause toward the magnetosphere, 38 cases exhibited decreasing H⁺ energy dispersion, while 88 showed increasing H⁺ energy dispersion. Notably, the average H⁺ temperature is higher in LLBLs with increasing dispersion compared to those with decreasing or no dispersion. A clear dawn-dusk asymmetry was observed: 85% of H⁺ decreasing cases occurred on the duskside, while 89% of H⁺ increasing cases were on the dawnside.  Interestingly, in many LLBL cases, the energy dispersion of He²⁺ ions differed from that of H⁺, particularly in the majority of increasing cases, though He²⁺ data is limited. Following orbit insertion, the 3D distribution functions measured by the ion sensors (MIA and MSA) aboard the BepiColombo magnetospheric orbiter will enable a more detailed analysis.

How to cite: Wang, X., Hadid, L., Aizawa, S., Sahraoui, F., Raines, J., and Lavraud, B.: Investigation of the Low-Latitude Boundary Layer (LLBL) in Mercury's Magnetosphere, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11550, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11550, 2025.

How to cite: Hadid, L., Harada, Y., and Saito, Y. and the MSA/MPPE and MIA/MPPE teams: Ion observations and composition from MSA and MIA during BepiColombo's final gravity assist maneuver at Mercury, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11718, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11718, 2025.

BepiColombo, launched in October 2018, is currently en route to Mercury. Although its planned orbit insertion is set for November 2026, BepiColombo continuously gathers new measurements during Mercury flybys. Throughout the cruise phase, the two spacecraft remain docked, with Mio protected behind the MOSIF sun shield, resulting in a limited observation for many instruments. Despite of such constraints, thanks to the smaller Larmor radii of electrons, wider range of electrons (from a few eV to a few hundreds of keV) got detected during the 3^rd Mercury flyby by Mercury Electron Analyzer (MEA) onboard Mio and Solar Intensity X-ray and Particle Spectrometer (SIXS) onboard the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO). Both instruments show quite similar variations indicating that they are observing same populations of electrons with wider energy range, and small differences in time indicate there are time-of-flight of electrons related to the drift motion of particles in the magnetosphere. Together with Plasma Wave Investigations (PWI) onboard Mio, the possible electron accelerations and transport will be discussed.

How to cite: Aizawa, S., Kilpua, E., Vainio, R., Rojo, M., Andre, N., Grande, M., Sanchez-Cano, B., Pinto, M., Saito, Y., and Sahraoui, F. and the MEA-SIXS-PWI of BepiColombo: Accelerated electrons in Mercury’s magnetosphere observed during the 3rd Mercury flyby of BepiColombo, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11787, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11787, 2025.

Introduction: Mercury, the innermost planet in the Solar System, remains an enigma due to significant gaps in our understanding of its internal structure. Recent advancements in planetary science have highlighted the potential of tidal Love numbers, specifically k2 and h2, to provide critical insights into the size of Mercury's inner core [1]. The Love number k2 represents a gravitational parameter, while h2 characterizes the radial deformation of the planet's surface. The determination of h2 can be achieved through techniques such as laser altimetry. The upcoming BepiColombo mission, set to arrive at Mercury in late 2026 [2], will enhance our understanding of Mercury's interior. A key instrument aboard BepiColombo, the Laser Altimeter (BELA), will enable the mapping of time-dependent surface elevations, providing crucial data for calculating h2 [3,4].

This study simulates BepiColombo's measurements using an orbit, observation, and tides model [5,6,7] to examine how the uncertainty in h2 decreases over the observation period. The BepiColombo Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) offers significantly better coverage of Mercury's tidal potential compared to the MESSENGER mission [8,9], suggesting that the BepiColombo mission will yield more precise measurements of the h2 parameter. However, the simulation kernels used in this study are based on outdated mission parameters due to the revised arrival schedule of BepiColombo. To ensure the accuracy and relevance of our findings, we plan to update the simulations with the most recent kernel data.

To further explore the potential of the BepiColombo mission in constraining Mercury's internal structure, we will employ a simulation-based approach using planning kernels provided by the European Space Agency (ESA). Our model will simulate observations of Mercury's surface topography, incorporating tidal signals to model the planet's response to external gravitational forces. Additionally, observational errors and potentially different rotation states of Mercury will be introduced to reflect the expected noise levels from the BELA laser altimeter. These simulated observations will be used to calculate the Love number h2 and its associated uncertainty for different observation durations. This will allow us to assess how the mission's length influences the precision of the h2 measurement.

Acknowledgments: This work is supported by DLR under grant 50QW2301. PDS data used in this work: Neumann G. (2016), urn:nasa:pds:mess_mla_calibrated::1.0, 10.17189

References: [1] Steinbrügge G. et al. (2018), JGR, 123, 2760-2772. [2] Benkhoff J. et al. (2010), PSS, 58, 2-20. [3] Thomas N. et al. (2007), PSS, 55, 1398-1413. [4] Thomas, N. et al. (2021), Space Sci. Rev., 217. [5] Koch C. et al. (2010), PSS, 58, 2022-2030. [6] Thor R. N. et al. (2021), J. Geod., 95. [7] Thor R. N. et al. (2020), A&A, 633, A85. [8] Santo A.G. et al. (2001), PSS 49, 1481-1500. [9] Cavanaugh J.F. et al. (2007) Space Sci. Rev., 131, 451-479

How to cite: Stenzel, O., Hilchenbach, M., Arghavanian, A., and Xiao, H.:  Mercury's Love number h2: Expected error range throughout the BepiColombo mission, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11985, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11985, 2025.

Mercury hosts a dynamic and highly variable magnetosphere shaped by its weak intrinsic magnetic field and the intense pressure of the solar wind. Previous observations from spacecraft sent to the planet have provided key insights into Mercury’s magnetospheric structure and energetic particle populations, revealing transient and highly variable energetic electron enhancements within the planet’s magnetosphere. We present BepiColombo/SIXS observations of energetic electron populations in Mercury’s magnetosphere during the spacecraft’s first three flybys of the planet. Although no such populations were observed during the first flyby, strong energetic electron signatures were observed during the second and third flybys. These observations are discussed in the context of observations by MESSENGER (Lawrence et al., 2015) in the invariant latitude-MLT plane, showing good agreement between the two data sets. Additionally, we present the highest time resolution energy spectra (> 70 keV) produced at Mercury during the second and third flybys.

How to cite: Edwards, L., Grande, M., Lawrence, D., Kilpua, E., Vainio, R., Lehtolainen, A., and Esko, E.: Energetic Electron Observations During BepiColombo’s First Three Mercury Flybys, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15163, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15163, 2025.

The solar wind significantly shapes and influences planetary magnetospheres, driving their structure and dynamics. Mercury, with its weak intrinsic magnetic field and close proximity to the Sun, is particularly sensitive to solar wind variations and adapts quickly to solar wind changes. Understanding solar wind characteristics, such as flow speed, is essential for fine-tuning magnetospheric models and eventually for interpreting Mercury’s magnetospheric response to solar wind changes. The solar wind speed affects both the aberration angle, which tilts the magnetosphere relative to the Mercury-Sun line, and the subsolar standoff distances from the internal dipole center of both the bow shock as well as the magnetopause.

This study reconstructs solar wind speeds from various bow shock and magnetopause crossings observed in-situ by MESSENGER’s magnetometer. We fit empirical bow shock and magnetopause models to the aberration angle and treat the subsolar standoff distances as additional parameters. For single crossings, a strong correlation between the parameters emerges. Thus, they cannot be independently determined, resulting in an infinite set of possible solutions for solar wind speed. To alleviate this problem, we combine multiple crossings to find a common aberration angle. Here, we present and discuss the first statistical results from the analysis and compare them to average boundary shapes and positions.

How to cite: Heyner, D., Klingenstein, L., Pump, K., Aizawa, S., Schmid, D., and Plaschke, F.: Solar wind velocity reconstruction at Mercury using MESSENGER bow shock and magnetopause crossings. , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15352, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15352, 2025.

The recognition of pyroclastic deposits on Mercury surface was driven by the presence of central pit (vent) surrounded by a spectrally bright and red deposit (facula) (Head et al, Science, 2008). In particular, the Visible to Near-InfraRed (VNIR) spectral properties permitted them to differentiate it from the surrounding terrains and defining the putative border of the deposits (e.g. Head et al, Science, 2008), since there is no morphological evidence that permits to limit their areal extension. Consequently, to improve our understanding of how the spectral properties of the effusive material extruded during the pyroclastic activity can change, considering variations in composition or textural properties of the material could improve our understanding of the pyroclastic deposits itself.

In this work we planned spectral analysis in reflectance and emittance of a systematic variation of samples with a silicate component as an example of pyroclastic extruded lava mixed with graphite or sulfide suitable for product formed with interaction of volatiles components during the pyroclastic activity at very reduced condition on Mercury (e.g., Cartier&Wood, Elements, 2019).

The pyroclastic endmember was prepared considering different variations among a crystalline mafic material and an amorphous component. We take into account variations in abundance as well as variation of particle size for the endmembers and for the mixtures.

All the samples have been measured in bidirectional reflectance in the VIS+VNIR+MIR spectral range, with particular attention to the 0.4-2.0 mm and 7-14 mm, spectral ranges where SIMBIO-SYS and MERTIS, onboard to Bepicolombo (Benkhoff et al., Spa.Sci.Rev., 2021), will operate. Moreover, for selected samples, emissivity (at Tsample = 150°, 250°, 350°, 450° C) in the MIR spectral range will be carried on. All the spectroscopic measurements are done at the PSL of DLR in Berlin.

This research was supported by the International Space Science Institute (ISSI), through International Team project #552 (Wide-ranging characterization of explosive volcanism on Mercury: origin, properties, and modifications of pyroclastic deposits).

How to cite: Maturilli, A., Carli, C., Galiano, A., Penttilä, A., and Landi, A. I.: Laboratory Spectral Measurements to Simulate Pyroclastic Material on Mercury, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15727, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15727, 2025.

Cooling and crystallization of Mercury's magma ocean likely formed a layered mantle composed of various proportions of minerals such as olivine, orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene, sulfides, and plagioclase, each with distinct thermal properties (e.g. thermal diffusivity, thermal conductivity, heat capacity, and melting temperature). Planetary thermal evolution models often consider an homogeneous mantle and treat these properties as constant or only varying with pressure and/or temperature. Their dependence on composition and modal proportions  is usually neglected, but can have a large impact on the modeled evolution.

Recent experimental studies gave access to the thermal conductivity and diffusivity of olivine, orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene. We calculated the thermal conductivity and diffusivity profiles of Mercury’s mantle assuming it is made of the Mg-rich endmembers forsterite, enstatite or diopside (i.e. the most likely phases occurring in the reduced interior of Mercury). We used a 1D parameterized model to simulate the thermal evolution of the planet with conductivity values varying from 1 to 4 Wm^-1K^-1, covering the above range of different mineralogies. We investigated several scenarios with (1) homogeneous conductivity over the whole mantle; (2) two layers characterized by different conductivity values. We then analyzed the results in terms of crust production and duration of mantle melting.

At pressures and temperatures relevant for Mercury's mantle, enstatite and diopside have higher conductivities and diffusivities than forsterite. This has a direct impact on the thermal evolution of the planet and on the melting of a fertile layer. Indeed, the more conductive the mantle is, the shorter its melting duration. Therefore, a mantle characterized by the conductivity of enstatite or diopside would promote a shorter melting time than one with conductivity of forsterite. In a two-layer mantle, melting duration is lower when conductivity of the top layer is higher compared to the bottom layer. The melting duration would thus be shorter for a mantle with a refractory olivine-like mantle conductivity at the base and an enstatite- and diopside-bearing fertile mantle-like conductivity in the upper part of the stratigraphic column. Besides the thermal conductivity, other parameters such as solidus temperature and heat production rate will be taken into account to obtain a consistent picture of the influence of mineralogical-dependent parameters on Mercury's evolution.

Accounting for variations in thermal conductivity and diffusivity due to heterogeneity in the mantle is therefore crucial in modeling planetary interiors. These factors significantly affect key parameters like crust thickness and the duration of volcanism.

How to cite: Lécaille, M., Tosi, N., Namur, O., Rivoldini, A., and Charlier, B.: The role of mantle layering and mineralogical-dependent thermal properties on the evolution of Mercury's interior, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17082, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17082, 2025.

The closest planet to the Sun, Mercury, is subject to particularly intense fluxes of solar energetic particles (SEPs). Its relatively weak magnetic field and small magnetosphere offer some protection againts these particles, deflecting them away before they can reach the surface. The effectiveness of this shielding could be probed in detailed during BepiColombo’s fourth (4 September 2024) and sixth (8 January 2025) flybys when and SEP events happened to be ongoing and the planet was immersed in high fluxes of energetic particles. During the fourth flyby, BepiColombo reached only 165 kilometres from the Mercury’s surface. In this presentation we analysis high energy electron and proton observations provided by the Solar Intensity X-ray and Particle Spectrometer SIXS. The data reveal a deep drop out in energetic particles fluxes due planetry shadowing. In addition, these unique measurements reveal that variations in particle fluxes depend clearly on particle type, direction and energy.

How to cite: Kilpua, E., Vainio, R., Grande, M., Edwards, L., Esko, E., Laurenza, M., Lehtolainen, A., Oleynik, P., Palmroos, C., Liu, S. J., Massetti, S., and Heyner, D.: Planetary shadowing and Solar Energetic Particles during the fourth and sixth BepiColomo Mercury Flybys, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17383, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17383, 2025.

Volcanic and magmatic processes have played a significant role in shaping Mercury’s surface and contributing to its mineral diversity. Areas such as smooth plains, which cover 27% of the planet, are thought to have formed from effusive volcanic events. Explosive volcanism is also suggested by the presence of depressions surrounded by high-reflectance halos, calderas, and vents linked to impact structures or faults. The BepiColombo mission, a collaboration between ESA and JAXA, was launched in 2018 to explore Mercury. It consists of two orbiters, MIO (JAXA) and MPO (ESA), with a focus on studying the planet's interior, surface, exosphere, and magnetosphere. The MPO carries instruments such as SIMBIO-SYS and MERTIS, which are designed to acquire spectral data.

Interpreting planetary surface data often requires understanding complex factors like mineral composition, elemental abundance, temperature, and particle size. This study investigates the mid-infrared (MIR) spectral response of silicate glasses with a range of grain sizes and chemical compositions, aiming to build a database to support future spectral analyses of Mercury’s surface, where volcaniclastic materials are expected to be abundant.

Three compositions resembling the Northern Volcanic Plains (NVP) on Mercury were prepared: NVP, NVP_Na, and NVP_Mg, each with varying amounts of Na and Mg. These compositions were created by melting pure oxides at 1400°C, then crushing the resulting glass into powder and re-melting it to ensure homogeneity. The glass was sieved into various grain size fractions, with some samples mixed to create new samples with Gaussian-like distributions to explore how fine-grained fractions affect spectral responses, particularly in relation to volcanic ash.

Spectroscopic analysis was performed using a Bruker Invenio-X FT-IR spectrometer. The VNIR spectra (400-2000 nm) showed typical features of silicate glasses, with an absorption peak at around 1100 nm and a weaker one at 1900 nm, related to Fe-O bonds. The slope of the spectra did not vary much with increasing grain size in NVP samples, but there was a noticeable increase in the NIR slope (1200-1800 nm) for NVP_Na and NVP_Mg.

In the MIR region (7-14 µm), the spectra revealed a correlation between the shape of the spectra and the chemical and granulometric characteristics of the samples. A local maximum at 10000 nm was observed for all spectra, associated with tetrahedral silicate units, and the NVP_Mg spectra showed distinct features due to the network-modifying role of Mg. The spectra also exhibited the Christiansen Feature at around 8 µm, a diagnostic feature for igneous products, and a transparency feature around 12 µm, which appeared in spectra of finer-grained samples.

These spectra will be made available on the SSDC-ASI portal and will be crucial for interpreting data from the BepiColombo mission, particularly from SIMBIO-SYS and MERTIS. This research will help in identifying potential unknown igneous materials on Mercury’s surface.

How to cite: Pisello, A., Fastelli, M., Scricciolo, E., Baroni, M., Musu, A., Comodi, P., and Perugini, D.: Spectral characterization of lab-made silicate glasses as analogues for Mercury: influence of grain size and chemical composition., EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17874, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17874, 2025.

The BepiColombo mission, a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), aims to explore Mercury and its space environment. This mission is the first multi-spacecraft endeavor beyond Earth, comprising the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), managed by ESA, and Mio, led by JAXA. Launched in 2018, BepiColombo is still in cruise phase and recently completed its sixth and final swing-by maneuver at Mercury before its arrival in December 2026. This study provides a comparative analysis of magnetic field observations during the mission's Mercury flybys, utilizing data from the Magnetometer (MGF) onboard the Mio spacecraft. We aim to characterize the observed space environment and solar wind conditions for each flyby. The distinct flyby trajectories enable the exploration of extended regions around Mercury, encompassing the distant magnetotail, bow shock, and both hemispheres along the terminator. These observations provide valuable insights into the magnetospheric and solar wind conditions during each of the six flybys, significantly enhancing our understanding of the dynamic behavior of the solar wind in the inner heliosphere and the complex structure of Mercury's magnetosphere.

How to cite: Schmid, D., Baumjohann, W., Matsuoka, A., Fischer, D., Magnes, W., Heyner, D., Auster, H.-U., and Nakamura, R.: Comparative Analysis of Magnetic Field Observations during BepiColombo Mercury Flybys, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17931, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17931, 2025.

The surface of Mercury has been extensively altered by space weathering and impact processes, making it challenging to identify the boundaries of geological units. We analyzed the Glinka crater in the Beethoven quadrangle (H-07), a region characterized by notable spectral and geological variability, including impact craters, a possible pyroclastic vent, hollows, and compressive structures. To delineate morphological boundaries, we integrated high-resolution imaging, spectral data, and topographic products.

For morphological mapping, we produced monochromatic mosaics at 121 m/px, 56 m/px, and 14 m/px resolutions using MESSENGER MDIS/NAC data. Spectral investigations utilized an eight-filters MDIS/WAC-derived multispectral image (268 m/px). Additional datasets including Digital Elevation Model (DEM, 222 m/px), roughness and shading maps, and gravity data. Data processing involved the Integrated Software for Imagers and Spectrometers (ISIS3), applying the Kaasalainen-Shkuratov photometric correction model considering the parameters derived by Domingue et al. (2016). Spectral unit identification relied on four parameters: Reflectance at 750 nm (R750), Global Spectral Slope between 430 and 1000 nm (S430-1000), IR Slope ranging between 750 and 1000 nm (S750-1000), and UV Slope between 430 and 560 nm (S430-560). Threshold values for these parameters were determined through supervised k-means clustering (k=4), resulting in maps showing Regions of Interest (ROIs) for each spectral parameter. To combine all threshold values of the four parameters, an automated process generated a composite map with over 400 ROIs. Smaller ROIs (<15% of the average pixel count per ROI) were excluded, and those with similar values (∆10%) were merged iteratively, yielding seven final spectral units.

We are producing a geological map of the area by integrating data from the spectral map and high-resolution imagery. The spectral map highlights spectral variations and, in some cases, compositional differences. This integration enables a more precise definition of the boundaries between geological units. involves detailed geological and chronostratigraphic interpretations involves the exploration of various RGB combinations to extract additional information. This analysis includes spectral parameter values for each unit, taking into account surface morphology and texture, which may influence spectral responses without necessarily indicating compositional differences.

Domingue D. L. et al. (2016) Icarus 268, 172-203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2015.11.040

 Acknowledgements:  M.I. and G.M. acknowledges support from the Italian Space Agency (2022-16-HH.1-2024).

How to cite: Ianiri, M., Mitri, G., and Zambon, F.: Glinka crater on Mercury: a spectral and morphological analysis, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17959, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17959, 2025.

The ESA-JAXA joint mission BepiColombo is still on the track to Mercury. The two spacecraft for BepiColombo, Mio (Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter: MMO) and Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), are combined with MMO Sun Shield (MOSIF) and Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) during the cruise phase. BepiColombo will arrive at Mercury in November 2026, and it has 8-years cruise with the heliocentric distance range of 0.3-1.2 AU. The long cruise phase also includes 9 planetary flybys: once at the Earth, twice at Venus, and 6 times at Mercury. On 8 January 2025 we completed the last (6th) Mercury flyby successfully. Even before arrival, we already obtained fruitful science data from Mercury during the Mercury flybys. We performed science observations with almost all the instruments onboard Mio and successfully obtained comprehensive data of Mercury’s magnetosphere such as magnetic fields, plasma particles, and waves. Here we present the overview and initial results of the science observations during the Mercury flybys.

How to cite: Murakami, G. and Jones, G.: Overview and initial results of BepiColombo Mercury flybys, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18018, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18018, 2025.

The BepiColombo mission, a cornerstone of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Cosmic Vision program in collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), represents an ambitious endeavor to deepen our understanding of Mercury. It uniquely combines the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio) to investigate Mercury’s interaction with the solar wind, its geological history, and its magnetic environment. The mission seeks to address fundamental questions about the evolution of terrestrial planets, including Mercury’s formation, internal structure, and enigmatic magnetic field.

BepiColombo’s operational phase at Mercury will prioritize the implementation of a meticulously designed strategy to maximize the scientific potential of its complementary payload. The dual-spacecraft configuration enables synchronized observations of the planet’s surface, exosphere, and magnetosphere, offering unprecedented insights into the planet’s complex environment. Key mission strategies include utilizing the spacecraft’s elliptical orbits to optimize coverage during perihelion passes, supporting high-resolution investigations of regions of particular scientific interest, and facilitating comprehensive global mapping. These efforts aim to provide a holistic understanding of Mercury’s geological and magnetic properties, as well as its interactions with the solar wind, making significant contributions to planetary science.

This presentation will highlight the broader implications of BepiColombo’s mission design, the operational strategies planned for the science phase, and the valuable insights gained from its Venus and Mercury flybys. Particular focus will be placed on how these lessons refine the mission’s science objectives and influence future exploration initiatives targeting Mercury and other inner Solar System bodies.

How to cite: Kotsiaros, S., Jones, G., Benkhoff, J., Martinez Sanmartin, S., Besse, S., Frew, D., Cappuccio, P., Belgacem, I., and Geiger, B.: BepiColombo's Journey to Mercury: Lessons from Cruise Operations and Plans for Orbital Science, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18729, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18729, 2025.

BepiColombo is a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which will carry out the comprehensive exploration of planet Mercury. The mission was launched on 20 October 2018 from the European spaceport Kourou in French Guiana, and is currently on a eight-year-long cruise to Mercury. BepiColombo consists of two orbiters, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio). In late 2026, these orbiters will be put in orbit around the innermost planet of our Solar System. Once in orbit, BepiColombo with its state of the art and very comprehensive payload will perform measurements to increase our knowledge on the fundamental questions about Mercury’s evolution, composition, interior, magnetosphere, and exosphere. BepiColombo successfully completed the last of its 6 flybys of Mercury in January 2025, and will continue its cruise during the rest of 2025 and much of 2026. Although the two BepiColombo orbiters are in a stacked configuration during the cruise, during which only some of the instruments can perform scientific observations, the mission has already produced some very valuable results, as well as striking observations of the planet using its three engineering monitoring cameras. We shall provide a summary of the mission status, a preview of the remaining plans for the mission up to and after arrival in orbit around Mercury, a broad overview of scientific results to date, and observations by the mission's monitoring cameras from the Mercury flybys.

How to cite: Jones, G. H. and Murakami, G.: BepiColombo Mission Update, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-19385, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-19385, 2025.

Mercury has a surface-bound exosphere that mediates transport of ion and netural species on the surface and within the Hermean environment. When precipitating solar wind particles impact the planet’s regolith, ions may be neutralised and backscattered, form chemical reactions with surface species, or induce sputtering processes. The SERENA (Search for Exospheric Refilling and Emitted Neutral Abundances) instrument onboard BepiColombo aims to study these surface-exosphere-magnetosphere interactions, using a suite of particle detectors and mass spectrometers. 
At INAF/IAPS, the Ion and Energetic Neutral Atom (I-ENA) laboratory facilitates controlled experiments on the interaction of ion/neutral beams with diverse surface analogues and detectors for planetary space weather investigation. ELENA (Emitted Low Energy and Neutral Atoms) one of the SERENA instruments, is devoted to detect backscattered ENA and possibly magnetospheric and solar wind ions with an energy range of 10 eV-5 keV, and its Flight Spare (FS) is tested and calibrated in the laboratory. The ELENA FS is intended to be used for future investigations of backscattering process with Mercury analogues. Laboratory experiments involving irradiation of Mercury analogues aim to provide ground truth to the data provided by this instrument. 
We present a test for simulating Solar Wind interactions with Mercury surface analogues. Mercury analogues are placed in a bespoke vacuum system which achieves working pressures of 10-7 mbar. A particle beam of energies between 0.5-5 keV (Helium-Argon), that can be modulated in intensity, area and direction, is used to irradiate samples. The charged particle beam (ions) can also be made into a beam of ENA with a neutralisation cell for charge exchange effect. 
We plan to investigate a variety of diverse samples, including slabs of meteorite and pellets similar in composition and grain size to Mercury’s surface.
This work will provide a detailed description of the facility and experimental framework, while identifying open questions and fostering discussions on interdisciplinary collaborations needed to advance Mercury science. Such experiments are pivotal for improving our understanding of Mercury’s environment and directly support the goals of the BepiColombo mission.

How to cite: Brin, A., Richards, G., De Angelis, E., Rispoli, R., Moroni, M., Sordini, R., Colasanti, L., Vertolli, N., Nuccilli, F., Mura, A., Mangano, V., Orsini, S., Plainaki, C., and Massetti, S.: Laboratory simulation of ion impact and back-scattering on Mercury surface analogues for planetary space weather investigation, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-19661, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-19661, 2025.

BepiColombo made its sixth and final swing-by of Mercury on January 8, 2025, crossing from the nightside over the north pole to the dayside near the noon-midnight plane. The Miniature Ion Precipitation Analyzer (MIPA), an ion analyzer in the Search for Exospheric Refilling and Emitted Natural Abundance (SERENA) instrument suite on the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), made observations throughout the swing-by, observing positive ions in the range from 30 eV – 14 keV with a hemispherical field of view. This swing-by gives a unique snapshot of the state of Mercury’s magnetosphere, as MIPA observed several magnetospheric regions within a short period, some of them for the first time. We observe the plasma sheet and plasma sheet horns, as well as plasma upwelling from the northern polar cusp to the dayside magnetopause. Passing through the dayside magnetosheath shows high anisotropic fluxes, as the magnetosheath bulk flow was in the MIPA FOV, unlike previous swing-bys. Following the bow shock crossing, we see a distinct foreshock population, followed by a half an hour gap in signal before a second foreshock detection at +5 R_M. We then compare the MIPA observations to modeled magnetic fields and environment. The combination of all the swing-bys highlights the versatility of planetary swing-by trajectories, which allow for observations of regions that may not be accessible after orbit insertion.

How to cite: Williamson, H., Barabash, S., Wieser, M., Nilsson, H., Futaana, Y., Milillo, A., Aronica, A., Kasakov, A., Orsini, S., Varsani, A., and Laky, G.: A snapshot of Mercury’s magnetosphere seen by MIPA in BepiColombo’s MSB6, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-21593, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-21593, 2025.

The relationship between Mercury’s magnetic cusp and variations in the solar wind has been investigated in several prior studies. Building on this foundation, we developed an integrated approach that combines two independent detection algorithms: one that identifies cusp signatures using magnetic field data—based on magnetic anisotropy and angular variations relative to the KTH reference model (without the cusp)—and another that analyzes particle data, utilizing a method established by Jim Rains. A key aspect of this work is the comparison of these two independent detection methods to gain deeper insights into cusp behavior. Using this combined approach, we conducted a statistical analysis that reveals how the structure and occurrence of Mercury’s magnetic cusp vary under different solar wind conditions.

How to cite: Zywczok, R. and Heyner, D.: Statistical Analysis of Mercury’s Magnetic Cusp and its Dependence on Solar Wind Conditions, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-21600, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-21600, 2025.

The modern Venus atmosphere has substantially lower water vapour abundance [1-3] and a high deuterium to hydrogen ratio (D/H) compared to Earth [3,4]. The high D/H suggests a significantly larger initial water reservoir than today. Some studies suggest an initial temperate climate, with a dayside cloud-albedo feedback supporting early and prolonged surface Habitability [5,6] and ending with a runaway greenhouse effect possibly triggered by large-scale volcanism [7]. Water vapour photodissociation and preferential loss of the lighter hydrogen would explain the observed D/H [8]. Other studies claim that warming from nightside stratospheric clouds could prevent water condensation [9].

Assuming surface water condensation from a steam atmosphere in the first place, we use a 3D General Circulation model (GCM) to simulate a hypothetical ocean on Venus (2.9 Ga). We use the 3D GCM ROCKE-3D (Resolving Orbital and Climate Keys of Earth and Extraterrestrial Environments with Dynamics), developed at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies [10]. The simulations use a spatial resolution of 4ºx5º (latitude x longitude), a 40-layer atmosphere (top pressure: 0.1-hPa) and a 13-layer fully dynamic ocean [11] coupled to the atmosphere. For the reference simulation, we select a modern Venus topography following the NASA/Magellan archive. We simulate a 310-m global equivalent layer (GEL), covering ~60% of the surface of Venus. Ocean volume is 1.4 x 10¹⁷ m³, one order of magnitude below that of modern Earth’s Ocean [5]. We set insolation to 2001 W/m² or 1.47 times that of modern Earth, representing conditions at 2.9 Ga. The atmospheric composition was set to be Archean Earth-like (1.013 bar N₂, 400 ppm CO₂, 1 ppm CH₄) [6]. Other planetary parameters follow the modern values of Venus’s surface gravity, radius, obliquity, eccentricity and rotation rate (retrograde slow-rotator: -243 days) [5].

We will discuss the main physical oceanographic parameters (e.g., potential temperature, salinity, potential density) and ocean circulation. Our results suggest the presence of deep mixed layers in the polar seas and the development of a complex meridional overturning circulation, controlled in part by the landmass configuration and bathymetry. In addition, we will explore the impact of parameters such as rotation rate, insolation, and ocean thickness on ocean circulation.

References: [1] Bézard B., et al.,2011.Icarus.216:173; [2] Cottini V., et al.,2015.Planet. Space Sci.113:219; [3] Encrenaz T., et al.,2015.Planet. Space Sci.113:275; [4] Krasnopolsky V., et al.,2013.Icarus.224:57; [5] Way M.J., et al.,2016.GRL.43; [6] Way M.J. & Del Genio A.D. (2020).JGR:Planets.125; [7] Way M.J., et al.,2022.Planet. Sci. J.3:92; [8] Chaffin M.S., et al.,2024.Nature.629:307; [9] Turbet M., et al.,2021.Nature.598:276; [10] Way M.J., et al.,2017.ApJS.213:12; [11] Russell G.L., et al.,1995.Atmos-Ocean.33:683.

Acknowledgements: This work was funded by the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) I.P./MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC) –UID/50019/2025 and LA/P/0068/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/LA/P/0068/2020), and research grants UIDB/04434/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/04434/2020) and UIDP/04434/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDP/04434/2020). DQ acknowledges FCT a PhD fellowship 2023.05220.BD. JCD also acknowledges FCT a CEEC Inst. 2018, CEECINST/00032/2018/CP1523/CT0002 (https://doi.org/10.54499/CEECINST/00032/2018/CP1523/CT0002).

How to cite: Quirino, D., Way, M. J., Green, J. A. M., Duarte, J. C., and Machado, P.: Ocean circulation on a temperate paleo-Venus simulated with ROCKE-3D, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-730, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-730, 2025.

Understanding the interior of our sister planet ahead of the next generation of Venus missions has become more imperative as its current and past state has remained an enigma. Venus does not currently have a mobile lid like Earth, yet it has a more tectonically active surface than any other stagnant-lid body in our solar system. Rifting is particularly an important process to study because rifts are a crucial feature of a mobile-lid planet. Rifts on Venus are spatially correlated with coronae, indicating that rifts are influenced by mantle dynamics and magmatism. The tectonic deformation associated with rifting, the emplacement of plutons, and the viscous relaxation of the lower crust are all informed by gravity-derived crustal thickness.

The gravity field from the Magellan mission has heterogenous resolution with a degree strength as low as spherical harmonic 40 (spatial block size of 475 km), which is coarser than the scale of Venus’s rift zones, Nevertheless, we can study rifting on Venus by focusing on a number of rift zones in regions with a degree strength of 95 (spatial block size of ~200 km).. This study area includes a majority of the BAT region as well as many major rift zones, and we find systematic trends of crustal thickening in addition to crustal thinning . The higher-resolution gravity fields recovered by VERITAS and EnVision will allow us to resolve all rift zones on Venus to fully understand the role of rifting on Venus and how it may shape/shaped Venus’ surface.

How to cite: Mills, A. and James, P.: Nature of Rifting on Venus Revealed by Gravity-Derived Crustal Thickness, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-763, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-763, 2025.

The European Space Agency's EnVision mission, slated for launch in the next decade, will provide unprecedented insights into the geological and atmospheric dynamics of Venus. EnVision's primary objectives include high-resolution subsurface mapping with the Subsurface Radar Sounder (SRS), operating with 9 MHz as the central frequency. This study investigates the potential of SRS to detect electromagnetic waves generated by lightning in the Venusian atmosphere, a phenomenon whose existence remains debated.

While optical observations of lightning are hampered by Venus's dense cloud cover, previous missions like the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and the Venus Express have detected whistler mode waves, which may be indicative of lightning activity.

This research employs the Stanford Full-Wave Method to model the propagation of lightning-induced waves in the SRS frequency range. This procedure allows us to establish if a radio signal generated at the cloud level at about 50 km altitude could propagate in the ionosphere and reach the radar with detectable power. The model has been previously applied to signals with frequencies up to 100 Hz in the Venusian atmosphere. Now, it is being adapted for the propagation of radio waves up to the MHz frequency band. By simulating various scenarios involving different ionospheric conditions - including the presence of ionospheric “holes” - magnetic field strengths and discharge intensities and rates, we assess the detectability of these signals by the SRS. Our findings confirm the sensitivity of wave propagation to variations in the Venusian ionosphere's electron and ion density profiles, identifying critical magnetic field thresholds required for successful detection.

The model is also being extended to lightning phenomena on Earth to study their detectability from space in the MHz frequency range under known background conditions.

This study contributes to our understanding of Venus's atmospheric processes and provides valuable context for interpreting potential lightning signatures in EnVision's SRS data.

How to cite: Rubinetti, S., Arnone, E., Pérez-Invernón, F. J., Lehtinen, N. G., Gordillo-Vázquez, F. J., Piergotti, A., Petracca, M., Prestileo, F., Tiberia, A., Bruzzone, L., and Dietrich, S.: Assessing the potential of EnVision's Subsurface Radar Sounder for detecting Venusian lightning, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-905, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-905, 2025.

Venus has recently garnered significant attention with the approval of three new missions: EnVision (ESA), DAVINCI+ (NASA), and VERITAS (NASA). Among the most important features of Venus, its thick clouds play a crucial role in regulating the current environment, influencing mission planning, and affecting planetary evolution and habitability. The sulfuric acid clouds are governed by the sulfur cycle, which exhibits considerable spatial and temporal variations and remains largely unknown. Furthermore, most chemical models treat the clouds as fixed boundaries to simulate the atmosphere above or below them, thereby avoiding the complexities of cloud calculations. Consequently, the sulfur-bearing species above and below the clouds are often inconsistent across these studies, particularly regarding SO₂ and SO₃.

Given that sulfur originates from chemical processes and that clouds feedback into the chemistry through dynamics, radiative transfer, and gas-liquid exchange, we emphasize the critical coupling effect between clouds and atmospheric chemistry in regulating the sulfur cycle on Venus. In light of this, we have undertaken a series of efforts.

Firstly, we developed a 1D H₂SO₄-H₂O binary condensation model to trace cloud cycles and investigate the impact of cloud acidity on the condensation process. This model generates self-consistent profiles of gas and liquid abundances of relevant species, cloud mass loading, acidity, and particle size that align with observational data. We found that the significant supersaturation of H₂SO₄ in the upper clouds is regulated by its chemical production rate. Based on this finding, we further simplified the condensation processes and constructed a semi-analytical cloud model, which significantly reduces the computational time for Venusian cloud modeling to just 15 seconds per run, facilitating cloud coupling studies.

Additionally, we developed a 1D atmospheric chemistry-transport model for Venus that spans the middle and lower atmospheres, incorporating updated chemical processes. The derived abundances of crucial species are consistent with observations. Our results confirm that the rapid dissolution-release cycle of SO₂ could lead to its significant gradient within the clouds. This study suggests that liquid SO₂ in the clouds may buffer variations in sulfur-bearing species and that the sulfur cycle could influence O₂ abundance. Our next step is to couple the cloud model and the photochemical model to explore the feedback of clouds on the atmosphere in greater detail.

How to cite: Dai, L., Shao, W., Zhang, X., Cui, J., and Fan, S.: 1D model studies of Venusian sulfur cycles in the clouds and atmospheric chemistry, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-2524, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-2524, 2025.

In this work, we show that Venus’ aerosols possess a complex chemical composition and contain previously underestimated reservoirs of water and iron sulfate. These assessments are based on re-analyses of data acquired in Venus’ atmosphere in 1978 by the Pioneer Venus Large Probe (PVLP). Data from the Large Probe Neutral Mass Spectrometer (LNMS) and Gas Chromatograph (LGC) are consistent with evolved gas analysis. During descent through the clouds, aerosols likely collected into the intake inlet assemblies of the LNMS and LGC. The collected aerosols then differentially decomposed through the increasingly hot atmosphere and released gases into the LNMS and LGC. Our treatment of LNMS data indicates that aerosols from ~ 51-48 km contain sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄) and iron sulfate(s) (e.g., Fe₂(SO₄)₃) in similar masses (~ 1 mg m^-3) and 3-fold higher abundances of H₂O (~ 3 mg m^-3). The substantial aerosol-phase H₂O likely arises from hydrates such as hydrated sulfates of iron and magnesium. Our inferred total aerosol mass loading, H₂SO₄ mass loading, and relative abundances of H₂SO₄ and H₂O in the volatile fraction of the aerosol (sulfuric acid solution) are consistent with all preceding measurements. We suggest that all direct measurements conducted in Venus’ clouds – to date – sampled and analyzed the cloud aerosols. Aerosol-phase H₂O was likely measured by the LNMS, LGC (Oyama et al., JGR, 85, 1980), Venera 13 and 14 gas chromatographs (Gel'man et al., Cosm. Res., 17, 1980, Mukhin et al., Sov. Astron. Let., 8, 1982), Venera 13 and 14 hygrometers (Surkov et al., Sov. Astron. Lett.l, 8, 1982), and Vega 1 and 2 moisture meters (Surkov et al., JGR Solid Earth, 91, 1986) – which independently measured high abundances of water in the clouds. Aerosol-phase iron was likely measured by the LNMS and suggested by X-ray radiometric data from Venera 12 (Petryanov et al., Soviet Physics Doklady, 260, 1981) and Vega 1 and 2 (Andreichikov et al., Cosm. Res., 25, 1987). Hence, these combined assessments highlight reservoirs of bulk water, iron sulfate, and possible cosmic materials (e.g., Fe and Mg) in Venus’ aerosols. This aerosol composition presents new considerations for Venus’ cloud chemistry, spectroscopy (e.g., refractive index and UV absorption), and habitability assessments. Further, these results apply to the upcoming DAVINCI mission and Venus Orbiter Mission, which plan to sample within and above the clouds, respectively.

How to cite: Mogul, R., Zolotov, M., Way, M., and Limaye, S.: Venus’ Aerosol Composition Extracted from Pioneer Venus Data, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-2625, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-2625, 2025.

The prime focus of astrobiology research is the search for life elsewhere in the universe, and this proceeds with the pragmatic methodology of looking for water and Earth-like conditions. In our solar system, Venus is the most Earth-like planet, yet at some point in planetary history there was a bifurcation between the two: Earth has been continually habitable since the end-Hadean, whereas Venus became uninhabitable. Indeed, Venus is the type-planet for a world that has transitioned from habitable and Earth-like conditions through the inner edge of the Habitable Zone (HZ); thus it provides a natural laboratory to study the evolution of habitability. A parallel approach to studying the intrinsic properties of Venus and its evolutionary history is a statistical analysis of the vast (and still rapidly growing) inventory of terrestrial exoplanets. Characterizing the atmosphere of numerous terrestrial planets and will provide critical insight into the prevalence of Venus analogs and the possible diversity of their atmospheric chemistry. In this presentation, I will describe how the current limitations in our knowledge of Venus are impacting present and future exoplanetary science, including remote sensing techniques that are being or will be employed in the search for and characterization of exoplanets. I will discuss Venus in the context of defining the boundaries of habitability, and how exoplanets are enabling tests of potential runaway greenhouse regimes where Venus analogs may reside. I will discuss specific outstanding questions regarding the Venus environment and the relevance of those issues to understanding the atmospheres and interior structure of exoplanets.

How to cite: Kane, S.: Venus in the Context of Exoplanet Demographics, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-3857, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-3857, 2025.

Surface rocks on Venus are exposed to a dense atmosphere, primarily composed of CO₂ (96.5%) and N₂ (3.5%), with trace amounts of H₂O and sulfur compounds like SO₂ and H₂SO₄, surface temperatures around 460°C and pressures ⁓ 90 times that of Earth. Understanding surface-atmosphere interactions is essential for interpreting data from NASA VERITAS and DAVINCI and ESA EnVision mission. Collaborative research between the Planetary Spectroscopy Laboratory (PSL) at DLR and the Hot Environments Laboratory (HEL) at NASA GSFC compares the emissivity responses of altered and unaltered Venus surface analogs within the 1 μm spectral region. This spectral range is significant as it corresponds to atmospheric windows in Venus' thick cloud cover, enabling remote sensing of the surface. Instruments like the Venus Emissivity Mapper (VEM) on VERITAS, VenSpec-M on EnVision, and the DAVINCI VISOR camera observe Venus in this region, requiring emissivity measurements under Venus-like conditions [1–4].

Methodology and Samples: This study selected well-characterized basalt and granite samples as Venus analogs. Here we focus on Saddleback basalt sanples from the Mojave Desert [5] prepared as slabs and granular materials of various sizes. Laboratory analyses included:

• Hemispherical reflectance measurements at ambient temperature in the near-infrared spectral range.
• High-temperature emissivity measurements under Venus-like conditions (400–480°C).
• Weathering experiments exposing samples to a simulated Venusian atmosphere in the Small Venus Chamber (Lil’ VICI) at HEL.
• Chemical analyses using micro X-ray fluorescence (µXRF) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for unaltered, heated, and altered samples at the Museum für Naturkunde (MfN, Berlin).

Fine granular samples, used to maximize interaction with atmospheric gases, are unlikely on Venus due to the absence of water-driven processes required for their formation [6,7]. Emissivity measurements captured NIR emissivity changes due to heating and alteration after weathering in Lil’ VICI [8]. Hemispherical reflectance measurements served as references for calibrating emissivity data.

Findings and Implications: Altered basalt samples displayed increased emissivity in the NIR range, partly due to “soot” from chemical reactions between chamber walls and SO₂ gas [9] and possibly darkening from mineral and glass breakdown at high temperatures. Comparisons between slab and granular morphologies highlighted the importance of studying various sample types to understand weathering effects comprehensively.
Future experiments will involve basaltic and granitic samples subjected to extended weathering durations and varied conditions, including comparative analyses between HEL and Glenn Extreme Environments Rig (GEER) experiments.These efforts aim to refine the understanding of weathering effects and improve data interpretation from Venus missions. 

Acknowledgements: A portion of this research was conducted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract 80NM0020F0035 with NASA.

References:

[1] Allen D. A. et al., (1984) Nature, 307, 222–224.
[2] Pollack J. B. et al. (1993) Icarus, 103, 1–42.
[3] Plesa A.-C. et al. (2024) this meeting.
[4] Garvin J. et al. (2024) LPSC, LV, Abstract #2429.
[5] Peters et al. (2008) Icarus, 197, 470–479.
[6] Golombek, M.P. et al. (2020), LPSC LI, Abstract #2744.
[7] Dyar, M.D. et al. (2021) Icarus, 358, 114139.
[8] Alemanno G. et al. (2023) SPIE, 12686, doi: 10.1117/12.2678683.
[9] Gilmore, M.S., and Santos, A.R. (2024) LPSC LV, Abstract #2519.

How to cite: Alemanno, G., Kohler, E., Van den Neucker, A., Helbert, J., Plesa, A.-C., Maturilli, A., Dyar, M. D., Adeli, S., Barraud, O., Hamann, C., Kaufmann, F. E. D., Smrekar, S., Widemann, T., Robert, S., and Marcq, E.: Exploring Emissivity Variations of Venus Analogs Under Simulated Surface Conditions: Insights for VEM and VenSpec-M data Analysis, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-4465, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-4465, 2025.

About 30 tonnes of cosmic dust particles – mostly from Jupiter Family Comets - enters Venus’ atmosphere every (Earth) day, of which around 40% ablates. This causes the injection of various metals (Fe, Mg, Si and Na in particular) into the atmosphere between 105 and 125 km. By analogy with the Earth, these metals should provide important tracers of both chemistry and atmospheric dynamics. In order to guide future observations of these metals, both from terrestrial telescopes and spacecraft, we have developed detailed chemical networks for each of the elements. These networks are extensions of those used to model these metals in the terrestrial atmosphere, where the Fe, Mg and Na networks have been rigorously tested against observations of neutral and ionized metal atoms made with ground-based lidars, spaceborne spectrometers, and sub-orbital rockets. For Venus, we now include a detailed chlorine chemistry because of the very large concentration of HCl produced by volcanic emissions. Where reactions have not been studied in the laboratory, we have employed quantum chemistry calculations combined with master equation rate theory for reactions taking place on multi-well potential energy surfaces. These networks were then inserted into the global Venus Planetary Climate Model. The simulations reveal that the metal atoms occur in layers about 10 km wide which peak around 110 km, and the metal ion layers peak about 10 km higher. Below 105 km the metals form carbonates, which are then converted into chlorides by reaction with HCl emitted by surface volcanoes. In this presentation we will discuss the metal layer variability on the day- and night-side, and the feasibility of detecting Mg, Mg⁺ and Na by observing solar-pumped resonance fluorescence on the dayside, and Na chemiluminescence on the night-side.

How to cite: Plane, J., Egan, J., Feng, W., Lefèvre, F., Lebonnois, S., and Stolzenbach, A.: Meteoric Metal Layers in the Upper Atmosphere of Venus, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-4502, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-4502, 2025.

Because of its rotation period of 243 days, Venus is considered a slowly rotating planet. However, its persistent superrotating atmospheric jets, which increase in speed from surface to cloud tops, effectively set a faster rotation speed than the surface rotation. Using the Venus Planetary Climate Model and wind measurements taken by the Pioneer Venus entry probes, we show that the Rossby radius of deformation of the atmosphere varies with height. The atmosphere falls into three circulation regimes: 1) from the surface to 20 km, the Rossby radius of deformation exceeds the planetary radius and no Rossby waves form, 2) from 20-50 km, the tropical Rossby radius becomes smaller than the planetary radius, and a circulation regime characterized by a superrotating equatorial jet and mid-latitude Rossby gyres appears, 3) from 50-70 km, the extratropical Rossby radius becomes smaller than the planetary radius, the jet develops mid-latitude maxima, and the Rossby gyres shift to high latitudes. Studies of exoplanetary circulation regimes as a function of rotation period have repeatedly shown a similar progression. While observing the circulations of exoplanets to confirm these predictions is not currently possible, the presence of different circulation regimes on Venus and their dependence on altitude could be tested by observing campaigns. Such evidence would be the first observational support for the theory connecting differences in planetary rotation periods to circulation regime transitions and would ground predictions of exoplanet circulations in a validated framework.

How to cite: Cohen, M., Holmes, J., Lewis, S., Patel, M., and Lebonnois, S.: Three worlds in one: Venus as a natural laboratory for the effect of rotation period on atmospheric circulation, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6334, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6334, 2025.

The upper haze region of Venus’ atmosphere (~70-90 km) has been shown to experience cold pockets, likely induced by gravity waves. Within this region, temperatures may become sufficiently low (< 160 K) to induce homogeneous ice nucleation in sulphuric acid droplets which might lead to ice cloud formation. Here, we first explored the homogeneous nucleation of ice in sulphuric acid solutions using a liquid nitrogen-cooled cryo-microscope setup, where water-in-oil droplet emulsions (with droplets of around 10-15 µm) are created using a microfluidic device. With this setup, we were able to extend the results from previous studies to lower temperatures and higher sulphuric acid concentrations. We observed crystallisation to 170 K, but this crystallisation was increasingly restricted by very slow crystal nucleation and growth rates at lower temperatures. Crystallisation was not observed below 154 K, consistent with the formation of ultra-viscous or glassy solutions.

To further explore the possibility of ice cloud formation on Venus, we also examined the observations of temperature, water vapour mixing ratio and pressure from the Solar Occultation in the InfraRed (SOIR) instrument onboard the Venus Express orbiter. Using this data, we determined that cooling around 80 km altitude would lead to the atmosphere becoming supersaturated with respect to ice, likely causing hygroscopic growth of sulphuric acid particles. We identified two possible trajectories due to this cooling. Either the conditions result in the growth and dilution of sulphuric acid droplets until homogeneous crystallisation conditions can be met, or the trajectory will cross into the glassy region, which would stop the droplets from being able to reach equilibrium. In this scenario, the formation of glassy aerosols will either stop any nucleation occurring, or they might provide solid surfaces on which heterogeneous nucleation occurs. Either through homogeneous or heterogenous nucleation, assuming a number concentration of 0.5 cm^-3, we would expect an average size of 0.6 µm ice crystals to form in the upper haze layer of Venus.  

Around 36% of the SOIR profiles reveal that these altitudes occasionally experience temperature extremes which are suitably cold (< 140 K) for the deposition of crystalline CO₂. A 1D model was developed to investigate the influence of gravity waves. This shows that under these conditions, crystals will grow rapidly in the cold phase of a wave to sizes large enough for precipitation downwards to the underlying warm phase where the CO₂ evaporates, effectively increasing the rate of sedimentation of sulphuric acid particles. Therefore, we suggest that water ice clouds form in large parts of the upper haze layer on Venus, with CO₂ ice clouds sometimes forming but rapidly precipitating and potentially redistributing sulphuric acid, water and other materials downwards.

How to cite: Thompson, K. A., Tarn, M. D., Plane, J. M. C., and Murray, B. J.: The Formation of Cirrus-Like Ice Clouds in Venus’ Upper Haze Layer, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6519, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6519, 2025.

The interior of Venus remains a mystery and, it is challenging to reconcile the available meager observations. The leading theory for the absence of a Venusian magnetic field is that heat within Venus remains trapped beneath the stagnant lid, raising the mantle temperature and limiting flow through the core-mantle boundary. While there are only three surface compositions from the Venera and Vega landers, they are consistent with Mid-Ocean Ridge Basalts (MORB) or Ocean Island Basalts (OIB) implying that in the melting region the mantle of Venus is nothotter than the mantle of Earth. This is a surprising result because stagnant (or squishy) lid planets have hotter interiors than mobile lid planets implying that Venus has not been in the stagnant (or squishy) lid mode of convection for much of its evolution or, another heat transport mechanism—such as heat piping—has played a critical role in the flux of heat through the lithosphere of Venus. We see little change in the geoid or topography power spectra between the calculations suggesting that the presence or absence of lithospheric mobility has only a modest impact on the large-scale geoid or topography. While the patterns of the geoid or topography are not likely to be matched by any convection calculation, the power spectrum is independent of coordinate system and thus, a more robust comparison between calculation and planet. The cases we have found predict a significant heat flux from the core to the mantle—as long as 1000 Myr after an overturn event—inconsistent with the absence of a present-day magnetic field and the estimated age of the surface from cratering, the next step will be to consider a Basal Magma Ocean (BMO) to sequester heat within the core.

How to cite: King, S., Maas, C., and Stein, C.: Venus surface compositions suggest upper mantle temperatures like Earth, so why is there no magnetic field?, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6540, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6540, 2025.

Better knowledge of Venus's interior structure is crucial to understanding its history and bringing insight into why its evolutionary path diverged so significantly from Earth's. Both NASA's VERITAS and ESA's EnVision missions will conduct geophysical investigations^[1] of Venus. Their radar and gravity experiments will determine the planet’s orientation, requiring a comprehensive rotation model in order to link these observations to interior and atmospheric properties.

Polar motion refers to the motion of a planet's spin axis relative to its surface. It is distinct from precession-nutation, which describes the motion of the spin axis relative to the fixed celestial sphere. Both motions provide complementary constraints for interior models.

In this study, to support the potential detection of polar motion by future Venus orbiters, we developed a polar motion model for a triaxial planet accounting for solar torque, centrifugal and tidal deformations of a viscoelastic mantle, and atmospheric dynamics. Core-mantle coupling effects were analyzed separately considering a simplified spherical core. We revisited the expression for the period of free motion known as the Chandler wobble. Solar torque is the dominant phenomenon affecting Venus's Chandler period, accelerating the wobble by a factor of 2.75, while solid deformations slow it down by less than 1.5%. We predict a Chandler period in the range [15 400; 19 400] years (core not fully crystallized) or [17 900; 20 700] years (core fully crystallized). During EnVision's four-year primary mission, the Chandler wobble manifests as a linear drift of about 75 meters of the spin pole on Venus's surface, near the resolution limit of EnVision’s VenSAR. We also computed the forced polar motion using the Venus Planetary Climate Model^[2]. The forced oscillations have an amplitude of approximately 20 meters, driven roughly equally by atmospheric dynamics and solar torque.

These results suggest that Venus's Chandler wobble may be detectable by future orbiters. Venus’s precession period has already been measured with a 7% relative uncertainty^[3], but is expected to be better determined by EnVision^[4] and VERITAS^[5]. A combined measurement of both the precession and Chandler periods will reveal the physical state of the core. If the core is not fully crystallized, the Chandler period would serve as a proxy for the mantle’s moment of inertia, providing complementary constraints for the size of the core and for thermo-chemical properties of Venus’s interior. Therefore, the wobble should be incorporated into rotation models when anticipating these missions.

^[1] Widemann et al. (2023), Space Science Reviews, doi:10.1007/s11214-023-00992-w
^[2] Lai et al. (2024), JGR Planets, doi:10.1029/2023je008253
^[3] Margot et al. (2021), Nature Astronomy, doi:10.1038/s41550-021-01339-7
^[4] Rosenblatt et al. (2021), Remote Sensing, doi:10.3390/rs13091624
^[5] Cascioli et al. (2021), Planetary Science Journal, doi:10.3847/psj/ac26c0

How to cite: Phan, P.-L. and Rambaux, N.: Modeling Venus's polar motion: preparing for EnVision measurements, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-9001, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-9001, 2025.

The surface of Venus is characterized by a large number of volcanic features, indicating that volcanic activity played an important role in the planet’s thermal and tectonic evolution. This volcanic activity is driven by a superheated interior and is likely to be related to either plumes coming from the deep interior or extension of the surface. The largest volcanoes have a diameter of more than 500 km, a height exceeding 3 km, and are associated with significant gravity anomalies. In order to better understand the formation of the large volcanoes on Venus and their gravity signatures, we investigate the rise and subsequent relaxation of a large-scale volcanic edifice by performing a series of 2D and 3D numerical simulations of the heat and mass transfer in Venus’ upper mantle.  The numerical modeling is conducted with the finite-element code ASPECT (https://aspect.geodynamics.org/) which has been modified to include different types of fractional melting parameterization and driving mechanisms (extension, plumes of different widths and temperature, etc.). The topography and the gravity signal are computed assuming that the lithosphere behaves as a Maxwell viscoelastic solid and the results are compared with the topography and gravity around selected prominent volcanic features.

How to cite: Dizov, A., Maierová, P., and Čadek, O.: Modeling the formation of large-scale volcanoes on Venus, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-9757, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-9757, 2025.

Earth’s size and composition make it comparable to Venus but these planets exhibit contrasting surface expressions due to their different tectonic regimes and surface recycling processes. Earth’s efficient recycling of its surface and the operation of plate tectonics are facilitated by the formation of extensive global subduction networks. During the Wilson Cycle, these networks drive periods of supercontinental breakup and active plate tectonics. We hypothesize that the formation of global subduction networks on Earth is promoted by the presence of water-rich continental sediments that reduce lithospheric friction at convergent margins. This is critical for inducing large-scale motion and reorganization of lithospheric plates, a key defining feature of modern plate tectonics. To explore this hypothesis, we developed a series of 3D global geodynamic models using the ASPECT code. These models reproduce 2 scenarios: (i) self-consistent plume-induced regional subduction and its reorganization into global subduction networks, (ii) prescribed inherited plate boundaries at 1Ga, demonstrating that sustained subduction activity is possible thanks to local frictional strength reduction. On Earth, such frictional reductions may fluctuate over time, driven by climatic events like Snowball Earth, which increase sediment flux and lubricate convergent plate boundaries. We compare these results with the results of models for Venus, where there is no liquid water at the surface, which implies higher frictional strength. We infer that without localized reduction of friction, regional subduction-like deformation on Venus’s dry surface is short-lived, failing to establish global subduction networks. However, in long-term, Venus can still experience episodic resurfacing as its lithosphere becomes unstable and collapses into the asthenosphere. Comparison of Earth’s and Venus’s tectonic styles highlights the role of surface water and water-rich sediments in sustaining large-scale and long-term subduction and in the development of a global network of subduction zones and plate boundaries, which is a characteristic of modern plate tectonics.

How to cite: Pons, M., Sobolev, S., and Jain, C.: Subduction network connectivity, a comparison between Earth and Venus, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10159, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10159, 2025.

Models of Venus's interior structure were developed based on PREM. These models are derived by solving the differential equations for mass and hydrostatic equilibrium throughout the planet and are fully characterized by the core radius Rc and two parameters denoted as A and B. The pressure dependence of the density in Venus’ mantle ρ(P) is modeled by scaling PREM’s ρ(P) with a factor A. Differences in density between these planets can arise from differences in composition and temperature. For instance, models with A<1 may correspond to a mantle with higher temperatures and/or lower iron content compared to Earth's mantle. Similarly, the density in Venus’ liquid core is obtained by scaling PREM’s ρ(P) with a factor B. We investigate Rc values ranging from 3000 to 3500 km and B values from 0.98 to 1.02. For each combination of Rc and B, we calculate the exact value of A required for our Venus model to satisfy the mass constraint. The A values range from as low as 0.92 when the core is large and dense, to as high as 1.04, associated with a smaller, less dense core. Shear and bulk moduli profiles were also obtained based on PREM.

In all models the pressure at the very center of the planet is considerably lower than the pressure at Earth’s ICB. This suggests that Venus could only have a solid inner core if the composition and temperature values in its core differ substantially from Earth’s.

Margot et al. (2021) estimated Venus's moment of inertia (MoI) to be 0.337 ± 0.024. The MoI values of all our models fall within this range, with Rc values between 3050 km and 3225 km yielding the closest match to 0.337. However, the uncertainty in this MoI estimate is too large, necessitating the use of additional constraints to study Venus's interior structure.

Venus’ tidal Love number k2 was estimated to be 0.295 +- 0.033 in Konopliv and Yoder (1996). In order to compute the Love numbers of our Venus models, we have developed a series of realistic viscosity profiles based on estimates available in literature. The anelasticity of Venus’ interior is modeled with an Andrade rheology, which depends on two parameters (α and ζ). In Amorim and Gudkova (2025) estimates of these parameters were obtained for Earth’s mantle, and similar but wider ranges are applied to Venus in this work.

The Love numbers of each of Venus's interior structure models were calculated using different viscosity profiles and Andrade parameter values. A statistical analysis of all models was conducted based on the available estimates of Venus's MoI and k2. The core radius is most likely within the range of 3125 km to 3400 km. For low-viscosity models, Rc is expected to be closer to 3125 km, while for high-viscosity models, it must be closer to 3400 km.

The tidal phase lag and the h2 Love number were also computed for all our models as a prospective for future missions to Venus that might measure them.

How to cite: Oliveira Amorim, D. and Gudkova, T.: Constraining the interior structure of Venus based on its moment of inertia and k2 values, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10767, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10767, 2025.

Venus is not ife on Venus?generally at the forefront when considering extraterrestrial life. Yet, based on the physical similarities and proximity to Earth and with the little knowledge of its evolutionary history speculate, there is a possibility that Venus may have hosted life in the past on the surface if Venus had liquid water and perhaps even present in the clouds today.  While the early suggestions during the beginning of the space exploration about life on Venus were mostly speculative due to limited data, recent interest has arisen from realizations  (i) the unexplained ultraviolet absorption spectrum of Venus resembles many organics, (ii) there is chemical disequilibria in the cloud layer, (iii) the cloud aerosols likely contain significant abundances of hydrated iron and magnesium sulfates, and (iv) the solar radiation received in the cloud layer contains the appropriate wavelengths and flux to support phototrophy.  Considering the extreme survival of many terrestrial microorganisms, the possibility remains that any extant life on Venus in the past could have adapted to survival in the cloud layer far above the surface where energy, nutrients are available but the precise compositions of the cloud particles and water availability are still uncertain. The key to solving the mystery of life on Venus is to determine if Venus had liquid water on the surface in its past and to measure the precise chemical composition of the Venus atmosphere and the cloud particles.

How to cite: Limaye, S.: Life on Venus?, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11995, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11995, 2025.

Despite their similar size and mass, Earth and Venus have very different internal dynamics that reflect contrasting modes of heat loss. On Earth, plate tectonics drive heat loss through lithosphere recycling, with a substantial contribution from hydrothermal circulation through oceanic plates, and a minor contribution from mantle plume (i.e. hot spot) activity. In comparison, the surface of Venus is more homogeneous, has lower relief, and shows abundant evidence of effusive volcanism, and its global dynamics is not well understood. Here, we present the first global heat flow map for Venus, as well as estimates of the total heat loss, obtained from an inversion of geophysical data, including lithospheric effective elastic thickness, crustal thickness, and radioactive heat production. The obtained heat flow is lower and less geographically structured for Venus than for Earth, but with maximum values reaching those typical of magmatically active terrestrial areas. Some previous works obtained widespread heat flow similar to those of active terrestrial regions were affected by the use of excessively high values for the thermal conductivity of lithospheric rocks. The obtained total heat loss is 11-15 TW, similar to estimates of the total radioactive heat production of the planet. Therefore, at present, Venus proportionally dissipates much less heat than Earth.

How to cite: Ruiz, J., Jiménez-Díaz, A., Egea-González, I., Romeo, I., Kirby, J., and Audet, P.: The heat flow of Venus from global lithosphere strength, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12084, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12084, 2025.

Venus' mass and radius are similar to those of Earth. However, Venus' interior structure and chemical composition are poorly constrained. Seemingly small deviations from the Earth might have important impacts in the long-term evolution and dynamics of Venus when compared to our planet and could help to explain the different present-day surface and atmospheric conditions and geophysical activity between these two planets. Shah et al. (ApJ, 2022) presented a range of possible bulk compositions and internal structures for Venus. Their models, designed to fit Venus' moment of inertia and total mass, predict core radii ranging from 2930-4350 km and include substantial variations in mantle and core composition. In this study, we pick ten different Venus models from Shah et al. (ApJ, 2022) that range from a small to a big, and from a S-free to a S-rich core. We run mantle convection evolution models for the different scenarios using the code StagYY (Tackley, PEPI 2008; Armann et al., JGR 2012) and explore how different interior structures and chemical compositions affect the long-term evolution and dynamics of Venus. In our models, the bulk composition of the mantle affects the basalt fraction and the solidus and liquidus temperature profiles. We investigate how the composition and size of the core affects magmatism hence outgassing of water and other volatiles to the atmosphere, the basalt distribution, heat flow, temperature of the mantle and lithosphere, and observables such as the moment of inertia and Love numbers. Since the tectonic regime active on Venus is still unknown, we test different evolution scenarios for a planet covered by a stagnant lid, an episodic lid, and a plutonic-squishy lid. The models produce a range of predictions that can be compared to observations by planned missions to Venus, including EnVision measurements by the VenSpec spectrometers, comprising outgassing of water and other volatiles and surface composition. These can be used to constrain Venus' interior composition and structure, and reveal key information on the differences between Earth and Venus.

How to cite: Lourenço, D., Tackley, P., Patočka, V., Rolf, T., Grünenfelder, M., Shah, O., and Helled, R.: Influence of Possible Bulk Compositions on the Long-Term Evolution and Outgassing of Venus, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12144, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12144, 2025.

Some of the most outstanding questions about the evolution and present-day state of Venus involve the current level of volcanic activity and its surface composition, both directly linked to the amount of differentiation that our neighbor experienced through time. Several observations indicate that Venus was volcanically active in the recent past and that magmatic activity may still be ongoing [e.g., 1,2,3,4,5].

While there is growing evidence that Venus is a geologically active world, information about the surface composition and the level of magmatic activity is still needed. Three Venus missions (ESA’s EnVision and NASA’s VERITAS and DAVINCI missions) are scheduled to launch at the beginning of the next decade and explore our sister planet with unprecedented detail. All three missions include instruments targeting the 1 µm spectral region [6] where Fe transitions occur that may distinguish differences in surface composition [7]. Here we focus on the Venus Emissivity Mapper instrument, which is called VenSpec-M on EnVision mission and VEM on VERITAS mission, which will be used as a multi-spectral imaging systems [8, 9]. On EnVision, VenSpec-M is part of the VenSpec Suite, and together with high-resolution IR (VenSpec-H) and UV (VenSpec-U) spectrometers, it will provide critical information for understanding the surface-atmosphere interactions on Venus.

Both VenSpec-M and VEM instruments have six surface bands that cover five atmospheric windows around 1 µm. These will be used to distinguish between different rock types using relative (via slope and ratios between bands) and absolute (by comparison with laboratory experiments) emissivity. The instruments will also search for active volcanic eruptions on Venus using surface bands to search for thermal signatures associated with active volcanism, and three additional water vapor bands that are sensitive to the abundance of water vapor potentially associated with volcanic outgassing.

Currently, measurements are performed at PSL with the goal of building a comprehensive dataset for the interpretation of VEM data. These include measurements on basalts vs. granites samples; investigations of end-member mineral mixing effects in emissivity [10]; and studies of the emissivity response of weathered vs. unweathered Venus analogs [11]. Measurements on samples collected during field campaigns can be compared to field measurements performed using a VEM instrument emulator to improve data interpretation and calibration techniques [12]. The surface mapping performed by VenSpec-M on EnVision combined with VEM on VERITAS will characterize emissivity changes and provide nearly full coverage of Venus surface.

Acknowledgements: A portion of this research was conducted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract 80NM0020F0035 with NASA.

References:

[1] Helbert et al., GRL, 2008. [2] Smrekar et al., Science, 2010. [3] Smrekar et al., Nat. Geosci., 2023. [4] Herrick & Hensley, Science, 2023. [5] Sulcanese et al., Nat. Astron., 2024. [6] Helbert et al., Bulletin of the AAS, 2021. [7] Mueller et al., JGR, 2008. [8] Helbert et al. Proc. SPIE 10765, 2018. [9] Helbert et al., Proc. SPIE 11128, 2019. [10] Alemanno et al., LPSC, 2024. [11] Alemanno et al., LPSC, 2025. [12] Garland et al., LPSC, 2025.

How to cite: Plesa, A.-C., Alemanno, G., Mueller, N., Helbert, J., Dyar, M. D., Robert, S., Marcq, E., Widemann, T., and Smrekar, S. E.: Constraining surface composition and searching for volcanic activity on Venus: Preparing for future emissivity measurements by EnVision's VenSpec-M and VERITAS's VEM instruments, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12314, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12314, 2025.

The Venus—Earth dichotomy inspires our understanding of the inner edge of the liquid-water Habitable Zone (HZ), yet, multiple theories exist to define the HZ inner edge and Venus's own climate history is debated. Theories of the HZ inner edge can be tested provided we can observationally distinguish Earth-like planets with liquid water oceans, from Venus-like planets with dry planetary surfaces. Dry planetary surfaces can potentially be identified by observing atmospheric sulfur dioxide (SO2), which is otherwise scrubbed from the atmospheres of Earth-like planets via wet deposition. However, SO2 in the atmospheres of Venus-like planets can be efficiently destroyed by photochemistry. We here demonstrate how the photochemical behaviour of SO2 can allow us to observationally identify dry planetary surfaces, but uniquely around M-dwarf stars. We propose a statistical comparative planetology study that can constrain the location of the inner edge of the habitable zone around M-dwarf stars in the near future using exo-Venuses rather than exo-Earths.

How to cite: Jordan, S. and Shorttle, O.: Tracing the inner edge of the Habitable Zone with exo-Venuses, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-13299, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-13299, 2025.

The neutral heating efficiency is commonly defined as the ratio of the net local gas-heating rate to the rate of solar radiative energy absorption. It is a crucial parameter that determines the upper atmospheric temperature and the thermal escape rate on both solar system bodies and exoplanets. In this study, we construct a one-dimensional photochemical model to compute the neutral heating efficiency in the dayside Venusian upper atmosphere. This calculation involves a complex network of microscopic processes, including photon and photoelectron impact processes, as well as exothermic chemical reactions. Our calculations indicate that the major heat sources in the Venusian atmosphere are the photodissociation of CO₂ at lower altitudes and the dissociative recombination of O₂⁺ at higher altitudes. During solar maximum, the neutral heating efficiency remains relatively constant at approximately 35% between 110 and 160 km, declining to 20% near 220 km. Furthermore, we find that the heating efficiency at higher altitudes is enhanced by increased concentrations of background H₂, attributable to a higher abundance of O₂⁺.

How to cite: Niu, D. and Cui, J.: Neutral Heating Efficiency in the Dayside Venusian Upper Atmosphere, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-14833, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-14833, 2025.

One can separate the atmospheric evolution of Venus into two epochs. The first epoch lasts from the final accreted planet 4.5 Gyr ago to the "last" resurfacing that occurred about 200-1000 Myr ago. The second epoch lasts from this resurfacing event until today. The evolution of Venus’ atmosphere during the beginning of the first epoch was exposed by very high solar EUV flux values, probably, water that was produced from the interaction between a primordial atmosphere and a magma ocean, water that was incorporated into the planet’s accretion from carbonaceous chondrites or a mixture of both sources. The different water sources have different initial D to H ratios, which could have been fractionated due to atmospheric escape. Here we will investigate how thermal escape processes may have affected or modified water-based initial D/H ratios after the planet’s origin to the last resurfacing a few hundred Myr ago.  By knowing the loss rates of H₂O from the planet’s origin to the time when the "last" resurfacing occurred, including the corresponding D/H ratio, allows us to make statements about the planet's water balance, since the ratio evolution during the above-mentioned second epoch is dominated by photochemical non-thermal H and D loss processes.

How to cite: Lammer, H., Scherf, M., Erkaev, N. V., Johnstone, C., Van Looveren, G., Kislyakova, K. G., Weichbold, F., Constatinou, T., Woitke, P., Rimma, P., Ferrus, M., Eminger, P., and Nemeckova, K.: The evolution of Venus’ early water inventory, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15793, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15793, 2025.

We have demonstrated that the combination of matrix isolation infrared (MI-IR) spectroscopy and vibration configuration interaction (VCI) calculations [1-3] is a feasible approach [4] to accurately assign and interpret IR spectra of single molecules, such as water [5], fluoroethane [6], carbon dioxide and methane [7].

Relying on our integral experimental-computational methodology for IR spectroscopy, we investigated carbon dioxide dimerization [8], including MI-IR spectroscopy of carbon dioxide monomers CO₂ and dimers (CO₂)₂ trapped in neon and air. Based on our VCI calculations accounting for mode-coupling and anharmonicity, we identify additional IR-active bands in the MI-IR spectra due to the (CO₂)₂ dimer. In a systematic carbon dioxide mixing ratio study using neon matrices, we observe a significant fraction of the dimer at mixing ratios above 300 ppm, with a steep increase up to 1000 ppm. In neon matrix, the dimer increases the IR absorbance by about 15% at 400 ppm compared to the monomer absorbance alone. This suggests a high fraction of the (CO₂)₂ dimer in our matrix experiments.

In atmospheric conditions, such increased absorbance would significantly amplify radiative forcings and, thus, greenhouse warming. In the context of planetary atmospheres, our results improve our understanding of the greenhouse effect for planets of relatively thick CO₂ atmospheres, such as Venus, where a significant fraction of the (CO₂)₂ dimer can be expected. There, the necessity of including the mid-IR absorption by stable (CO₂)₂ dimers in databases used for modeling radiative forcing, such as HITRAN, arises.

References

[1] G. Rauhut, JCP, 121, 19 (2004)
[2] M. Neff et al, JCP, 131, 12 (2009)
[3] H. J. Werner et al, JCP, 152, 14, (2020)
[4] D. F. Dinu et al, TCA, 139, 12, (2020)
[5] D. F. Dinu et al, JPCA, 123, 38 (2019)
[6] D. F. Dinu et al, JMS, 367, (2019)
[7] D. F. Dinu et al, PCCP, 22, 32 (2020)
[8] D. F. Dinu et al, JPCA, 126, 19, (2022)

How to cite: Dinu, D. F., Bartl, P., Quoika, P. K., Podewitz, M., Liedl, K. R., Grothe, H., and Loerting, T.: Increase of radiative forcing through mid-IR absorption by stable CO2 dimers?  , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15992, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15992, 2025.

The physical origin and chemical nature of haze particles below the main sulphuric acid clouds in the Venus atmosphere is investigated. We make a number of predictions based on our theoretical models concerning the chemical state of the gas and the properties and material composition of μm-sized particles in the lower Venus atmosphere, from ground level to a height of about 50 km. Our GGchem phase-equilibrium model (Woitke et al. 2018) for the Venus surface predicts a number of metal-chloride and metal-fluoride molecules to be present in the gas over the surface in trace concentrations < 2×10⁻¹², in particular FeCl₂, NaCl, KCl and SiF₄. Using an improved version of the DiffuDrift model developed by Woitke et al. (2020) we find that these molecules can deposit to form solid potassium sulphate K₂SO₄, sodium sulphate Na₂SO₄, and pyrite FeS₂, at heights larger than about 15.5 km, 9.5 km and 2.4 km, respectively. We call these condensations sulphate hazes, because their opacity is insufficient to make the lower Venus atmosphere optically thick. The most prominent material is found to be Na₂SO₄, which is expected to deposit on the surfaces of chemically passive aerosol particles in form of a mantle with a thickness of a few 100 mono-layers. Our models predict that such haze particles, with sizes between about 0.1 to 0.3 μm, can be dredged up from the ground to reach the sulphuric acid cloud base from below by diffusion in concentrations of about 300-1500 particles per gram of gas, depending on the efficiency of coagulation. Only these sub-micron particles can reach the main cloud layer from below. Particles larger than about 2 μm are found to stay more concentrated to the ground < 10 km.

References:

Woitke, P., Helling, C., Hunter, G. H., et al. (2018), “Equilibrium chemistry down to 100 K. Impact of silicates and phyllosilicates on the carbon to oxygen ratio“, A&A 614, A1

Woitke, P., Helling, C., & Gunn, O. (2020), “Dust in brown dwarfs and extra-solar planets. VII. Cloud formation in diffusive atmospheres“, A&A, 634, A23

Rimmer P., Jordan S., Constantinou T., Woitke P., Shorttle O., Hobbs R., Paschodimas A. (2021), “Hydroxide Salts in the Clouds of Venus: Their Effect on the Sulfur Cycle and Cloud Droplet pH”, PSJ 2, 4, id133.

How to cite: Woitke, P., Helling, C., Rimmer, P., Scherf, M., Lammer, H., and Ferus, M.: Prediction of sulphate hazes in the lower Venus atmosphere, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-16034, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-16034, 2025.

How to cite: Bussmann, M., Helled, R., Gillmann, C., Tackley, P., Reinhardt, C., and Stadel, J.: Giant Impacts on Venus, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17467, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17467, 2025.

Polarimetry is a powerful tool to characterise a planet's clouds and hazes. The degree of polarisation of sunlight that is reflected by a planet is very sensitive to the illumination and viewing angles, the wavelength of the light, and the composition, size, and shape of the cloud and haze particles. Additionally, the degree of polarisation is rather insensitive to instrumental errors and to uncertainties in the total flux of sunlight reaching the planet.

EnVision, ESA’s next Venus orbiter, will carry the spectrometers VenSpec-U and VenSpec-H, both of which are polarisation-sensitive. Accurate measurements of the total (polarised + unpolarised) flux of the sunlight that Venus reflects therefore require information about the degree of polarisation of the incoming light. VenSpec-H includes polarisation filters that, apart from correcting for the polarisation sensitivity, will also provide valuable science data.

To support the total flux and polarisation measurements, we have developed a state-of-the-art Fortran radiative transfer code based on the Monte Carlo technique. This code enables us to simulate VenSpec-U and -H observations, fully accounting for the polarisation of light. With our model simulations, we can investigate how the measurements should be taken to minimise the errors and to maximise the amount of atmospheric information that can be retrieved. The code also accounts for the sphericity of Venus’ atmosphere, which is important for accurate simulations in twilight and polar regions. In this talk, we will show simulations of the total flux and polarisation signals of the sunlight that is reflected by Venus and discuss the spectropolarimetric signatures of the clouds and hazes.

How to cite: Trees, V., Stam, D., Yzer, M., Wang, P., and Siebesma, P.: Modelling Venus's Spectropolarimetric Signatures for EnVision, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17483, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17483, 2025.

Despite sharing a broadly similar interior structure and composition with Earth, Venus exhibits a starkly contrasting geodynamic regime. On Venus, the coronae, large quasi-circular volcano-tectonic structures, represent very prominent surface expressions of mantle plume activity thus providing important clues for the understanding the tectonic evolution of the planet [1, 2]. They are commonly interpreted as forming in response to crustal stresses induced by an upwelling mantle plume, followed by gravitational relaxation or collapse associated with magma withdrawal [3].

Our findings allow to transition from reliance on numerical modeling to the direct investigation of coronae subsurface architecture using an observation-based geological dataset. This study examines fractures associated with seven coronae, spanning diameters from 115 km to 1070 km, capturing the coronae size variability: Atahensik, Demeter, Didilia, Heng-O, Kamui-Huci, Ninkarraka, and Pavlova. Fractal analyses of mapped fractures were performed to estimate the thickness of the fractured medium, with each fracture family comprising hundreds to thousands of features to ensure robust statistical significance. The results reveal distinct behaviors between fractures confined to the corona annulus and those extending beyond it, highlighting fundamental differences in their formation and evolution processes.

For coronae with diameters ≤320 km, fracturing systems within and along the annulus are confined to the crustal thickness [4,5] while maintaining a scaling relationship with the coronae diameter. This pattern suggests a unified formation mechanism operating across the entire volcano-tectonic structure. Such behavior is consistent with the hypothesis that diking driven by a mantle plume facilitates magma emplacement within the crust, resulting in the formation of shallower magma chambers. Magma withdrawal from these reservoirs, spanning from initial evolution to collapse, appears to govern the surface fracturing observed [6]. In contrast, larger coronae exhibit a thicker fractured medium beneath their central regions, indicating mechanical coupling between the crust and upper mantle. This coupling likely arises due to elevated strain rates, which may result either from interactions between the plume and lithosphere (i) during active plume uplift, where magma advection generates high strain rates, or (ii) during later stages of evolution, when the cooling of underplated magma drives rapid subsidence of the lithospheric block. The mechanical interplay between the crust and shallow mantle thus spans multiple evolutionary phases, facilitating the development of deep fracture systems similar to those observed on Venus. These findings align with the coexistence of both active and inactive coronae [7] identified within the dataset.

[1] Ghail, R. C., et al., Space Sci-ence Reviews 220.4 (2024): 36. [2] Phillips, R. J., J. Geophys. Res. 95, 1301–1316 (1990). [3] Janes, D. M., S. W. et al., J. Geophys. Res., 97(E10), 16,055– 16,067, (1992) [4] James, P.B., et al., 118, 859–875, (2013). [5] Ji-ménez-Díaz, A., et al., Icarus 260 (2015): 215-231. [6] Lang, N.P., and López, I., Geological Society, London, Special Pub-lications 401.1 (2015): 77-95. [7] Gülcher, A.J.P., et al., Nat. Geo. 13.8 (2020): 547-554.

Acknowledgement: This research was supported by the European Union NextGenerationEU pro-gramme and the 2023 STARS Grants@Unipd pro-gramme “HECATE”.

How to cite: De Toffoli, B. and Mazzarini, F.: Subsurface Architecture of Coronae, Venus , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17486, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17486, 2025.

Radiative Transfer (RT) modeling is an essential tool to understand planetary atmospheres. In the coming decade, several missions to Venus are planned that aim to image Venus nightside thermal emission in the NIR spectral windows [1]. The NIR wavelength range of 0.8–1.2 µm contains spectral windows where Venus’ surface thermal emission radiation is detectable from space, paving the way for surface and near-surface atmosphere studies in these bands [2]. In order to process the data from these missions once they are available, RT modeling of the Venusian atmosphere is a necessary first step. The Spectroscopy for the Investigation of the Characteristics of the Atmosphere of Venus (SPICAV) suite on board Venus Express made observations of Venus’ nightside in the spectral range of 0.65–1.7 µm [3] and provides a good baseline for a comparison with synthetic spectra. These spectra are based on molecular absorption cross-sections which in turn are governed by the line list chosen for the model. The HIgh-resolution TRANsmission molecular absorption database (HITRAN) is a frequently used line database in RT modeling [4]. Several Venus atmospheric studies (e.g., [5]), however, have relied on the database of [2] for CO₂ lines, referred to as “Hot CO₂” from here on. Newer line databases have been developed for high temperature atmospheres which are yet to be applied to Venusian atmospheric studies [4]. As part of this work we model nadir radiances for the Venusian atmosphere in the NIR range using a DISORT [7] algorithm and compare them to radiances produced with existing RT schemes used for modeling atmospheres (e.g., Planetary Spectrum Generator (PSG) [8]). In this work:

• We compare radiances produced considering absorption from relevant species present in the Venusian atmosphere using different line-lists: HITRAN 2020, HITEMP, Hot CO₂ [2,4,6].
• We compare our modeled radiances to the observed SPICAV dataset
• We make further comments and predictions regarding parameters that need to be fine-tuned in order to reproduce the observed spectra from SPICAV.

References:

[1] Allen D. A. et al. (1984) Nature, 307, 222–224

[2] Pollack J. B. et al. (1993) Icarus, 103, 1–42

[3] Korablev O. et al. (2006) J. Geophys. Res. 111(E9)

[4] Gordon I. E. et al. (2022) J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer, 277, 107949

[5] Bézard B. et al. (2011) Icarus, 216(1), 173–83

[6] Rothman L. S. et al. (2010) J. Quant. Spectrosc. & Radiat. Transfer, 111(12-13), 2139–2150

[7] Stamnes et al. (1988) Applied Optics, 27(12), 2502-2509

 [8] Villanueva G. L. et al. (2018) J. Quant. Spectrosc. & Radiat. Transfer, 217, 86 – 104

How to cite: Das, A., Mueller, N., Schreier, F., Kappel, D., Grenfell, J. L., Rauer, H., Plesa, A.-C., and Helbert, J.: Radiative Transfer Modeling of Venus - A comparison of line databases, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18202, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18202, 2025.

Venus is, in terms of size, density and composition, the most similar planet to Earth. Still, the two planets differ greatly in their surface conditions, tectonic regime and volcanic signatures. Solving the enigma of how and why they evolved to be so different is of particular importance in order to understand habitability in the universe. This study investigates how Venus’ high surface temperature, one of its key features, influenced the interior evolution of the planet.   Our work aims to explain the tectonic regime, its surface expressions on Venus, and the importance of the surface temperature in planetary evolution.  Furthermore, it strives to forecast the temperature dependence of the tectonic regime for a Venus-like planet. Our results could be used to refine our understanding of conditions necessary for planetary habitability and the influence of the surface temperature on volcanism and outgassing. Insights gained from understanding Venus’ dynamics will deepen our understanding of rocky exoplanets, from Earth-like to those located near the inner edge of the habitable zone, where surface temperatures approach Venus-like extremes. 

The numerical convection code StagYY (Tackley, PEPI 2008) is used to model the 2-D thermochemical evolution and convection of a Venus-like planet. In contrast to previous studies (Gillman et al., JGR Planets 2014, Noack et al., Icarus 2012), this study includes composite rheology (dislocation creep, diffusion creep and plastic yielding), a more realistic experiment-based plagioclase crustal rheology, as well as intrusive magmatism, following Tian et al. (Icarus, 2023). The surface temperature is varied in six sets of models from 300K to 740K and the effects of these temperature variations on the interior dynamics and tectonic regime is examined. Furthermore, different  rheologies are also tested, varying between a “weak” plagioclase and an olivine rheology for the crust. Finally, we tested a range of reference viscosities for the models, which control the convection vigour.  

Preliminary results verify the expectations that models with higher surface temperatures produce thinner crusts susceptible to downwelling-like processes, whereas models with a lower surface temperature produce thicker, more rigid crusts. Furthermore, first results indicate that the mobility of the crust trends with surface temperature depending on the crustal rheology. As expected, models with an olivine crustal rheology have higher mobilities for higher surface temperatures, likely caused by the lithospheric weakening at higher surface temperatures. However, models that include a plagioclase rheology, show a more complex, sometimes inverse trend for their mobility, which is not displayed in their crustal thickness trends. Finally, the tectonic regime seems to be strongly dependent on the combination of temperature and rheology and our Venus-like models experience  a combination of plutonic-squishy lid (Lourenço et al., G3 2020) and episodic-lid regime depending on the specific parameters of the simulation.

How to cite: Murzkhmetov, L., Gillmann, C., Lourenco, D. L., and Tackley, P.: Abstract: The effects of surface temperature on the tectonic regime and interior dynamics of Venus and exoVenuses. , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-19808, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-19808, 2025.

EnVision is the fifth Medium-class mission in ESA’s Science Program, selected in June 2021 and adopted in January 2024. EnVision is an ESA-led mission in partnership with NASA, where NASA provides the Synthetic Aperture Radar payload and mission support. The mission launch is scheduled for 2031; science operations at Venus will start early 2035 following the mission cruise and aerobraking phase to achieve a low polar orbit. The scientific objective of EnVision is to provide a holistic view of the planet from its inner core to its upper atmosphere, studying the planet's long-term history, activity and climate. EnVision aims to establish the nature and current state of Venus’ geological evolution and its relationship with the atmosphere. EnVision’s science objectives are to: (i) characterize the sequence of events that formed Venus' surface, and the geodynamic framework that has controlled Venus' internal heat release ; (ii) determine how geologically active the planet is today; (iii) establish the interactions between the planet and its atmosphere at present and through time. Furthermore, EnVision will look for evidence of past liquid water on its surface.
The nominal science phase of the mission will last six Venus sidereal days (~four Earth years), and ~210 Tbits of science data will be downlinked using a Ka-/X-band communication system. The science objectives will be addressed by five instruments and one experiment, provided by ESA member states and NASA. The VenSAR S-band radar will perform targeted surface imaging, polarimetric and stereo imaging, radiometry, and altimetry. The high-frequency Subsurface Radar Sounder (SRS) will sound the upper crust in search of material boundaries. Three spectrometers, VenSpec-U, VenSpec-H, and VenSpec-M, operating in the UV and Near- and Short Wave-IR, will map trace gases, search for volcanic gas plumes above and below the clouds, and map surface emissivity and composition. A Radio Science Experiment (RSE) investigation will exploit the spacecraft Telemetry Tracking and Command (TT&C in Ka-/X bands) system to determine the planet’s gravity field and to sound the structure and composition of the middle atmosphere and cloud layer in radio occultation. All instruments have substantial heritage and robust margins relative to the requirements, with designs suitable for operation in the Venus environment. The EnVision science teams will adopt an open data policy, with public data release of the scientific data after validation and verification. Public calibrated data availability is <6 months after data downlink.

How to cite: Widemann, T., Straume Lidner, A. G., Schulte, M., and Pacros, A.: Science objective and status of the EnVision Mission to Venus, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-21105, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-21105, 2025.

LunarLeaper is an ESA Small Mission candidate, aiming to robotically investigate lunar volcanic pits and associated subsurface lava tubes. Lunar pits likely represent collapsed ceilings of lava tubes, providing unique access to the lunar geologic record. One possible landing site for the LunarLeaper mission is the Marius Hills pit (MHP). The MHP is located within a sinuous rille in the region of Oceanus Procellarum (14.1ºN, 303.2ºE). Multiple exposed layers along the pit wall offer a unique opportunity to study the evolution of lunar volcanism, potentially revealing insights into the Moon's geological history. A thorough characterization of the lava tube may also pave the way for future human missions, as underground sites offer natural protection from the Moon's harsh surface conditions.

As part of the mission, the LunarLeaper, a legged robot, will explore the pit using high resolution cameras and possibly spectrometers, taking different images of the wall and the interior of the pit from different locations along the rim. Our main goals are to (1) characterize the slope and trafficability around the rim, (2) use the geomorphometry of the MHP to characterize and quantify viewing conditions, and (3) assess the need for and benefits of a mast-mounted camera. In this study, we use 3D point cloud reconstruction from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Narrow Angle Camera images (Wagner and Robinson, 2022), to perform a geomorphometric assessment of the site. We analyze the slope and trafficability around the pit, which provides essential data in evaluating the robot’s ability to establish a line-of-sight with the pit wall and floor. Next, using ray-casting, we evaluate the overall visibility of the pit walls and floor if observed from the rim, exploring the balance between visibility/science return and the physical stability of the robot. Then, we identify optimal positions along the rim for which LunarLeaper can achieve a maximum level of visibility. In parallel, we evaluate the need for and benefits of a mast-mounted camera to enhance LunarLeaper’s ability to view into the MHP’s deep interior. Finally, we examine trade-offs between the slope angle traversed on the rim and mast height to achieve optimal visibility into the MHP while minimizing mission risk.

Our findings indicate that it is possible to capture depths down to 30 meters and on average 25 meters while remaining on low risk, i.e., less than 15 degree slopes. Additionally, using a relatively short mast (under 1 meter) enables the capture of the pit's deepest regions and the underlying lava tube. The outputs of this study will be used for mission design by providing input on (1) LunarLeaper design trade-offs, e.g., the possible addition of a camera mast, (2) the concept of operations e.g. with respect to path planning, and (3) the optimization of the scientific return of the overall mission.

How to cite: Margarit, R., Mittelholz, A., Bickel, V., and Stähler, S.: Geomorphometric Assessment of the Marius Hill’s Pit for LunarLeaper, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-75, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-75, 2025.

The LunarLeaper mission concept aims to explore subsurface lava tubes on the Moon. These are of interest for further robotic and human exploration, because such subsurface structures can provide shelter from the Moon’s hostile environment including radiation, large temperature fluctuations and micrometeorites. Satellite data has revealed that the lunar surface hosts hundreds of steep-walled pits. These pits have been hypothesized to represent collapsed ceilings of underground volcanic lava tubes, thus revealing unique insights into the subsurface and the geologic history of the Moon. Here, we characterize all currently known pit locations, as listed by Wagner and Robinson [2014], using globally available geologic, geomorphologic, and thermophysical information (from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter LRO and the Selenological and Engineering Explorer SELENE). This enables us to map pit characteristics and relate them to the scientific, landing site, and operational requirements in the context of the LunarLeaper mission.

First, we study potential landing sites at each lunar pit considering that the rover will land in an area where the slope angle is smaller than 8° within a precision landing ellipse of 100 m. For each potential landing site, we quantify the visibility of the overall mission area, to determine if the robot would be able to establish line of sight with the lander antenna on the way to and once it reaches the volcanic pit. At the location with the best communication coverage, we evaluate the minimum distance to the pit, while considering slope and communication constraints. We also study the diurnal temperature variations which will set engineering requirements for the mission. Furthermore, we use the Unified Geological Map of the Moon, Fortezzo and Harrel [2020], to describe the geologic terrains hosting the pits. Finally, the characterization of all mapped lunar pits, allows us to perform an evaluation of landing sites most suited for LunarLeaper, while also providing constraints for any future missions targeting lunar pits.

References

Spudis P. D. Fortezzo, C.M. and S. L. Harrel. “Release of the digital Unified Global Geologic Map of the Moon at 1:5,000,000- scale.” In 51st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, LPI Contribution, 2020. URL https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2020/pdf/2760.pdf.

Robert V. Wagner and Mark S. Robinson. “Distribution, formation mechanisms, and significance of lunar pits.” Icarus, 237:52–60, 2014. ISSN 0019-1035. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2014.04.002. URL https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103514001857.

How to cite: Gómez Jodar, J., Mittelholz, A., and Bickel, V.: Geologic and Thermophysical Characterization of Lunar Volcanic Pits, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-360, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-360, 2025.

The predominant concentration of volcanic activity and surface enrichment of heat producing elements (HPE) on the lunar nearside suggest an asymmetry in interior properties and thermal history of the Moon. The distribution of HPE beneath the surface and the processes that led to their enrichment on the nearside surface remain poorly understood (Gaffney et al., 2023). Interior radiogenic heating directly affects surface heat fluxes measured in situ during the Apollo program (Langseth et al., 1976), and estimated from orbit at the Compton-Belkovich (Siegler et al., 2023) and Region 5 locations (Paige & Siegler, 2016). 

Here, we link the subsurface distribution of HPE to the present-day surface heat flux using 3D thermal evolution models. We investigate the interior dynamics of the Moon from the post magma ocean crystallization phase to present-day using the mantle convection code GAIA (Hüttig et al., 2013). Similar to Plesa et al. (2016), we use a spatially variable crustal thickness model as input (Broquet & Andrews-Hanna, 2024). We investigate the structure of a putative HPE-rich layer underneath the PKT (Procellarum KREEP Terrane, Jolliff et al., 2000) assuming a circular geometry. We vary its location, size, depth and HPE enrichment compared to the mantle and anorthositic crust. Our models consider the HPE concentrations as constrained from magma ocean crystallization studies, but assume that additional mechanisms may have led to a migration of heat sources below the PKT region. 

Similar to Laneuville et al. (2013), we find that an enriched layer placed below the crust can efficiently heat up the mantle and contribute to explaining prolonged lunar magmatism. We show that the prominent gravity anomaly associated with the warm mantle beneath the PKT (Laneuville et al., 2013; Grimm, 2013) can be used to construct updated crustal thickness models, which display a substantially thinner nearside crust.

Our models show that a large HPE anomaly underneath PKT (~1500 km radius) allows sufficient surface heat flux variability to account for the low Region 5 value (Paige & Siegler, 2016) and the Apollo 15 & 17 measurements (Langseth et al., 1976). Conversely, a smaller anomaly (<1200 km) fails to produce any significant difference in surface heat flux between Apollo 17 measurement and Region 5 estimate. However, this geometry may help explain the absence of Imbrium’s western ring (Broquet & Andrews-Hanna, 2024) and the spatial variability in the relaxation state of lunar basins (Ding & Zhu, 2022).

Our models provide an important baseline for the interpretation of upcoming heat flux measurements within Mare Crisium (TO19D, Nagihara et al., 2023) and Schrödinger Crater (CP-12, Nagihara et al., 2023), predicting that the heat flux at Crisium and Schrödinger should be comparable to that measured at Apollo 17 and estimated at Region 5, respectively. Significantly different heat flux measurements would have profound implications for our understanding of the distribution of radiogenic elements within the lunar interior. Lastly, quantifying the subsurface thermal state and the distribution of HPE on the Moon will prove crucial for infrastructure development in the framework of the Artemis program. 

How to cite: Santangelo, S., Plesa, A.-C., Broquet, A., Breuer, D., and Root, B. C.: Constraining the distribution of radiogenics on the Moon from global geodynamic models, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-566, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-566, 2025.

Imaging Infra-Red Spectrometer (IIRS), sent on-board Chandrayaan-2, has been mapping the lunar surface since 2019 with high spatial (80 m/pixel) as well as spectral resolutions (0.7 to 5 µm) [1-3]. This study uses two IIRS images, portions of which encompass the floor of Schrödinger Basin. Surface temperatures were derived from the two overlapping IIRS strips, which were then used to study the thermal properties of a part of the basin’s floor. Additionally, surface temperatures were also acquired by processing corresponding Diviner data, by matching IIRS pixels according to their Ground Control Points (GCPs) along with their local times of acquisition. It has been deduced that, for a particular period of time, the temperatures derived from IIRS are comparable with the corresponding Diviner data. Furthermore, factors contributing towards the mean temperature differences between the IIRS and Diviner datasets have been identified.

In order to use the temperatures obtained from IIRS, a case study on the ~320-km-wide-Schrödinger Basin was performed. In this regard, a volcanic vent (Schrödinger G), situated at 75° S and 139° E was studied, which is known to have deposited pyroclastic material on the basin floor [4-5]. Our analysis on the pyroclastic material-covered surface around the vent reveals several interesting findings: (1) Using the temperature data from IIRS, we were able to identify two distinct morphological units within the same pyroclastic deposit. The two units surrounding the vent exhibit different surface temperatures (an average relative difference of ~25-30K). (2) We have also used Clementine UVVIS colour-ratio data to identify differences related to soil mineralogy across the two deposits. The two units display contrasting tonal signatures on the UVVIS FCC image, thereby confirming the presence of two mineralogically distinct surface units. (3) In addition, using images from LRO-NAC, we have also performed a crater size frequency distribution (CSFD) measurement on the two units to estimate their relative ages. Our analysis reveals that the vent has experienced multiple eruptions, with the oldest ~3.7 Ga ago, while the latest being ~1.8 Ga ago, interspersed with different eruptions in between. Furthermore, CSFD measurements reveal that one of the units is significantly younger than the other. Based on the above results, we attribute the deposition of materials with different textures on either side of the vent to the several episodes of eruptions.

In conclusion, due to IIRS’s relatively higher spatial resolution, it was possible to identify and establish significant differences within a single pyroclastic deposit on the basis of derived temperature data, which have been validated from spectroscopic data as well. This study thus highlights the importance of using high-resolution IIRS data for such studies in future.

References: [1] Chowdhury et al. 2020, Current Science, 118, 368–375. [2] Bose et al. 2024, Advances in Space Research, 73, 2720-2752. [3] Verma et al. 2022, Icarus, 383, 115075. [4] Kramer et al. 2013, Icarus, 223, 131-148. [5] Kring et al. 2021, Advances in Space Research, 2021, 4691-4701.

How to cite: Bose, S., Karunakaran, D., Kapadia, T., Panwar, N., and Srivastava, N.: High-resolution surface temperatures of the Moon derived from Imaging Infra-Red Spectrometer (IIRS) on-board Chandrayaan-2: A case study on the Schrödinger Basin, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-691, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-691, 2025.

JAXA Virtual Planet (VP) system, developed by JAXA Lunar and Planetary Exploration Data Analysis Group (JLPEDA), is an innovative Web-GIS platform based on ESRI’s ArcGIS suite. Started in 2020, VP serves as the successor to Kaguya Integrated Data Analysis System (KADIAS), enhancing visualization and analysis capabilities of lunar data. Unlike KADIAS, which was limited to 2D visualizations, VP supports global 3D spherical visualization with topography, as well as 2D and 3D views of polar and mid-latitude regions. One of VP’s standout features is a bird’s-eye view functionality, which enables dynamic perspective changes in 3D visualizations.

VP is available in two versions: Easy version, designed for general users with an emphasis on accessibility and mobile compatibility, and Advanced version, which caters to researchers with advanced analytical tools. VP integrates both publicly available Kaguya mission datasets (e.g., PDS data products) and proprietary high-level processed datasets, such as FeO/TiO₂ content maps and lunar mare age maps, offering a comprehensive platform for lunar exploration data analysis.

Key features of VP include:
1.    Distance and area measurement,
2.    Shareable URLs for reproducing screen states,
3.    Pop-up attribute information for layers,
4.    Custom visualizations (e.g., RGB composition, arithmetic operations, and color mapping),
5.    Cross-section visualization and download (3D view only),
6.    Location nomenclature search,
7.    Sun and Earth sub-point display,
8.    Drawing and memo input,
9.    Printing, and
10.    Data downloads for user-defined regions.

Features (4) through (10) are exclusive to the Advanced version, designed to meet the needs of researchers. Compared to KADIAS, VP introduces several new functions, significantly enhances usability, and improves data resolution. These advancements mark a substantial leap forward in functionality and user experience, allowing for more detailed and flexible analyses of lunar datasets.

VP is currently undergoing final revisions (e.g., accelerating Kaguya Spectral Profiler data rendering, generating cache data for ArcGIS map image layers, addressing bug fixes, etc.) for public release, which is scheduled to occur within the current fiscal year. This system aims to become an essential tool for lunar and planetary science community, offering enhanced capabilities for both general users and researchers.

How to cite: Hemmi, R., Sato, H., Oshigami, S., Nanbu, S., and Yamamoto, M.: JAXA Virtual Planet: A next-generation web-GIS platform for lunar data visualization and analysis, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-1505, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-1505, 2025.

The surface conditions on most of the lunar surface are incredibly harsh for survival of microbial life. Combinations of high doses of ultraviolet radiation, high temperatures, and energetic particle radiation are likely to limit survival over most unprotected surfaces on the Moon. This is particularly true in equatorial regions, where all previous crewed exploration of the Moon has taken place. However, whether these surface conditions are as widespread at high latitude regions such as the lunar poles has not been examined while considering the effect of topography.  Comparing topography and latitude-driven surface conditions using remote sensing data and high-resolution models of illumination conditions in lunar polar regions to survivability data of specific microorganisms, we find that there are significant areas in the lunar poles that likely possess surface conditions amenable to the survival of those microbes. The potential survivability of microbial life at the lunar poles is particularly significant given the numerous plans for crewed exploration of the lunar south pole in the near future. Additionally, many of the microbes we examined are likely to be brought to the Moon as a side effect of crewed exploration. Thoughtfully planning exploration and tracking its impact in this context is key to limiting and understanding potential unintended transfer of life to the Moon.

How to cite: Saxena, P., Bertone, S., Graham, H., Curran, N., Regberg, A., Needham, A., Pugel, B., and Petro, N.: Potential Survivable Niches for Microbial Life on the Lunar South Pole, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-2927, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-2927, 2025.

LunarLeaper is a mission concept designed to robotically explore subsurface lava tubes on the Moon. Lunar pits, steep-walled collapse features, are thought to be connected to such lava tube systems and more than 300 have been identified through remote sensing. These natural subsurface structures hold immense value for exploration and scientific investigations, because they offer protection from radiation, micrometeorites, and harsh temperature fluctuations on the lunr surfac

e and as such, they have been proposed for possible future human habitation. In addition, the extent, nature and duration of lunar volcanism is poorly understood and the uniquely exposed stratigraphy along the pit walls might hold crucial
information on the volcanic history if the Moon.

However, current orbital imaging lacks sufficient resolution to confirm these connections, making ground-truth exploration essential. LunarLeaper aims to address these knowledge gaps by deploying a lightweight (<15 kg) legged robot capable of autonomously traversing challenging terrains, including steep slopes and boulder fields, that hinder traditional wheeled rovers. The mission will investigate four primary objectives:

• (1) Subsurface Lava Tubes—confirming the presence and extent of lava tubes;
• (2) Suitability for Human Habitation—assessing the accessibility stability of pits;
• (3) Geological Processes—analyzing the exposed stratigraphy along pit walls to study volcanic evolution, the number and timing of lava flows, and the compositional evolution of the lunar interior;
  
• (4) Regolith Assessment—exploring the lateral and vertical extent of regolith, which holds vital information about the Moon’s geological and impact history.

The legged robot will land close to a lunar pit, equipped with ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and a gravimeter to map subsurface structures and detect lava tubes. It will also capture high-resolution images and compositional data from the pit walls travelling a total of approximately 1 km within one lunar day (approximately 12 Earth days). LunarLeaper not only advances lunar exploration by providing access to previously unreachable terrains but
also demonstrates the potential of legged robotic systems in space. It will serve as a key technology demonstration, contributing to the development of future robotic exploration systems and laying the groundwork for future human missions to the Moon.

How to cite: Stähler, S. C., Mittelholz, A., Kolvenbach, H., Arm, P., Bickel, V., Church, J., Hamran, S.-E., Fuhrer, A., Gschweitl, M., Krasnova, E., Margarit, R., Aaron, J., Coloma, S., Grott, M., Hutter, M., Karatekin, O., OIivares-Mendez, M., Ritter, B., Robertsson, J., and Walas, K.: LunarLeaper - Unlocking a Subsurface World, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-3659, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-3659, 2025.

Despite lacking a global magnetic field, the Moon features localized magnetized regions called lunar magnetic anomalies [1]. Their interaction with the solar wind results in significant proton reflection and deflection [2], creating unique structures often referred to as lunar mini-magnetospheres [3, 4]. Previous studies have shown that the largest magnetic anomaly, the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) cluster, induces global-scale perturbations in the near-surface lunar plasma environment on both the dayside [5, 6] and nightside [7]. However, its influence on the plasma environment in south polar regions remains unknown.

In this study, we produce new composite images of backscattered energetic neutral hydrogen derived from Sub-KeV Atom Reflecting Analyzer (SARA) [8] data. These images reveal that plasma perturbations generated by the SPA cluster can extend to lunar south-polar regions, depending on local time and upstream solar wind conditions. These perturbations affect solar wind proton precipitation patterns, either decreasing or enhancing impinging proton fluxes depending on whether the south pole lies downstream or outside of the SPA anomaly. Based on these observations, we develop an empirical model of solar wind compression by the SPA cluster to evaluate its impact on ion instrument measurements at the south pole.

Understanding the complex interactions between the plasma, dust, and electromagnetic environments is an important asset to ensure safe and sustainable human presence on the Moon. We will discuss the role of the SPA cluster in these interactions, which will establish preliminary measurement requirements for in-situ plasma instruments in polar regions.

References:

[1] Coleman et al. (1972), Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, https://doi.org/10.1016/0031-9201(72)90050-7.

[2] Lue et al. (2011), Geophysical Research Letters, https://doi.org/10.1029/2010GL046215.

[3] Lin et al. (1998), Science, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.281.5382.1480.

[4] Wieser et al. (2010), Geophysical Research Letters, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009GL041721.

[5] Fatemi et al. (2014), Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JA019900.

[6] Maynadié et al. (2024), Europlanet Science Congress 2024, Berlin, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2024-79.

[7] Dhanya et al. (2018), Geophysical Research Letters, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL079330.

[8] Barabash et al. (2009), Current Science, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24105464.

How to cite: Maynadié, T., Futaana, Y., Barabash, S., Bhardwaj, A., Wurz, P., and Asamura, K.: Effects of the South Pole-Aitken Magnetic Anomaly Cluster on the Plasma Environment at the Lunar South Pole, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-4290, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-4290, 2025.

Although metallic iron (Fe⁰) is a ubiquitous product of space weathering, its formation mechanisms are still poorly understood. On the lunar surface, Fe⁰ particles ranges in size from a few nm to several mm and are widely believed to have formed by a variety of mechanisms. These include the in-situ reduction of FeO during cosmic ray bombardment, localized heating by micrometeorites and the subsequent reduction of FeO, as well as the addition of Fe⁰ from iron-nickel meteorites during micrometeorite bombardment (Hapke, 2001; Kuhlman et al., 2015; Gopon et al., 2017; Day, 2020). The exact formation mechanism has wide ranging implications for remote spectral analysis of airless planetary bodies, the cosmic ray and micrometeorite flux to the Moon, correction of bulk-geochemical data on the moon, and the potential of the lunar surface to be a source of critical metals.

We present the results of a combined Electron Probe Micro-Analyses (EPMA) and Atom Probe Tomographic (APT) study to characterize the composition of Fe⁰ from Apollo 16 Regolith (sample #61500). Combining these techniques allowed us to explore the wide range of textural occurrences and size fractions of Fe⁰ and constrain the origin and emplacement mechanisms of these metallic regolith components. We focused on the germanium, iron, and nickel concentrations of the Fe⁰, as these three elements are key tracers that enable differentiation of in-situ vs extra-lunar processes. Our work shows that all Fe⁰ analysed in sample 61500 exhibit a meteoritic geochemical signature, which is most closely linked to the IIAB group of iron meteorites  (Gopon et al., 2024). This rare meteorite group is notable for its low nickel but high germanium concentrations. The lunar regolith’s significant inventory of meteoritic metals implies that it is a potentially valuable resource for a range of critical metals (EU Report, 2023), not least the Pt group metals and germanium. Furthermore, the host phase – npFe –contained within powdered regolith implies extraction and refining of these elements might be significantly more energy and cost effective than terrestrial deposits.

References:

Day, J.M.D., 2020, Metal grains in lunar rocks as indicators of igneous and impact processes: Meteoritics and Planetary Science, v. 15, doi:10.1111/maps.13544.

EU Report, 2023, Study on the Critical Raw Materials for the EU 2023 – Final Report:

Gopon, P., Douglas, J.O., Gardner, H., Moody, M.P., Wood, B., Halliday, A.N., and Wade, J., 2024, Metal impact and vaporization on the Moon’s surface: Nano-geochemical insights into the source of lunar metals: Meteoritics & Planetary Science, v. 59, p. 1775–1789, doi:10.1111/maps.14184.

Gopon, P., Spicuzza, M.J., Kelly, T.F., Reinhard, D., Prosa, T.J., and Fournelle, J., 2017, Ultra-reduced phases in Apollo 16 regolith: Combined field emission electron probe microanalysis and atom probe tomography of submicron Fe-Si grains in Apollo 16 sample 61500: Meteoritics & Planetary Science, v. 22, p. 1–22, doi:10.1111/maps.12899.

Hapke, B., 2001, Space Weathering from Mercury to the asteroid belt: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 106, p. 39–73.

Kuhlman, K.R., Sridharan, K., and Kvit, A., 2015, Simulation of solar wind space weathering in orthopyroxene: Planetary and Space Science, p. 1–5, doi:10.1016/j.pss.2015.04.003.

How to cite: Gopon, P., Douglas, J., Moody, M., Halliday, A., Wood, B., and Wade, J.: Nano-geochemical insights into the source of lunar metals, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-4338, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-4338, 2025.

Geological planetary mapping is mainly done by considering morphology and stratigraphic information, supported sometimes by color variation to define boundaries of superficial textures or highlight physical properties. In recent years more attention was used to integrate mineralogical indications from the visible to the near-infrared (VNIR) to the usual planetary geological mapping. Specifical examples has been tested on Mercury (e.g. Wrigth et al., ESS, 2024), on Mars (e.g. Giacomini et al., Icarus, 2012) and on the Moon (e.g. Tognon et al., JGR, 2024).

Here, we investigate the Proclus crater, a 28 km, simple and fresh crater, Copernican in age (Apollo 15 PSR), which shows a variegate VNIR reflectance properties. We have analyzed the M3 m3g20090202t024131 (onboard Chandrayaan-1 mission) image to study the composition of Proclus crater whereas a mosaic compiled with six LROC (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera) NAC images, with a spatial resolution of 0.8 m/pixel, has been used to define the morpho-stratigraphic map of the area.

We first classified the crater in different spectral regions applying the Spectral Angle Mapper (Kruse et al., REMOTE SENS. ENVIRON., 1993) method and using image-driven end-members by Purity Pixel Index (PPI, Boardman,  7JPL-Air.Geos.W., 1993). PPI supports the definition of 7 end-members, integrated by other 4 end-members evaluating the spectral variability.

Representative spectrum of each Spectral Unit was deconvolved by Gaussian model and results on mineralogical detection were compared with well characterized terrestrial analogues. The 11 end-members support the definition of six main Spectral Units and 2 units were divided in sub-units from a mineralogical point of view.  The Spectral Units recognized from Proclus crater indicate that this crater is characterized by lithologies rich in plagioclase mixed with variable amount of different mafic phases.

Geomorphological mapping highlights as Proclus crater walls is affected by mass wasting deposits, mainly represented by taluses. The crater floor is instead dominated by impact melt with different surface texture: from smooth melt ponds to more hummocky and knobby deposits.

Finally, Spectral Units were used to improve the morpho-stratigraphic map and identify sub-units or new-units.

We acknowledge support from the Horizon 2020 program grant agreements 871149-GMAP and 776276-PLANMAP.

How to cite: Carli, C., Giacomini, L., Serventi, G., and Sgavetti, M.: Proclus crater: a study case to integrate compositional information and morpho-stratigraphic mapping on the Moon, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6383, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6383, 2025.

Mass wasting events on the Moon have been documented since the Apollo era and are distributed across its surface. On Earth, the morphology and runout distance of landslides, particularly flowlike landslides such as debris and mud flows, are strongly influenced by the mobilized soil and bedrock properties, notably the water content.

Despite the absence of widespread, liquid surface water on the Moon, previous surveys identified numerous lunar flow events across the Moon’s equatorial regions (± 60° latitude), termed “granular flows” or “flows”, in short, excluding the polar regions due to unfavorable illumination conditions. The recent release of ShadowCam images now enables the extension of past mapping efforts to the shadowed portions of the lunar polar regions (> 80° latitude).

Here, we perform a thorough, manual search for flows in polar region craters using images from the Korean Pathfinder Lunar Obiter (KPLO) ShadowCam and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Narrow Angle Camera (NAC). We analyzed three regions for comparison: the Equatorial Region (Eq) (±60°), the South Pole Region (Sp) (80°–90° S), and the North Polar Region (Np) (80°–90° N). We focused our mapping efforts on flows in craters where more than 1% of the internal area has slope angles exceeding 30°. We utilized 131 ShadowCam images and 84 processed NAC images to map flows. Additionally, 100 random highland events from the Eq region were manually mapped for comparison with polar events.

We identified 23 Sp and 99 Np flows, distributed across 3 and 16 craters, respectively. A significant disparity emerged between the Eq and polar regions. While 38.7% of craters with slopes exceeding 30° in the Eq region contained flows, the percentages dropped to 33.3% in Np and 16.6% in Sp. Consequently, the likelihood of developing flows in Np and Sp with the same distribution as the Eq region is only 8.02% and 0.59%, respectively. Notably, Sp flows occur in areas with relatively lower LPNS-derived Water Equivalent Hydrogen (WEH) and outside permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) compared to Np flows. We observe no significant differences in geomorphic flow characteristics between the three regions. Flow efficiency (flow height/length, or H/L) averaged ~0.6, and the median source angle was ~32° across all regions.

Our results suggest that flows are 1) scarce in the polar regions, yet 2) do not exhibit anomalous geomorphologic properties in comparison to equatorial (dry) flows. This suggests the presence of an inhibitory factor - or the absence of the pre-conditions required for flow formation. Ongoing work is investigating whether our observations could be explained by a cementing effect caused by (near-)surface volatiles. The accumulation of volatiles might strengthen the regolith, reducing the probability of flow initiation due to meteorite-induced seismicity or moonquakes. Our observations might also indicate that potentially large quantities of subsurface volatiles are not shallow enough to cause and/or become mobilized in flow events. It is also possible that the observed flows formed before volatiles accumulated.

How to cite: Pedrelli, R., Bickel, V., Aaron, J., and Deutsch, A.: Volatile Ice Presence Analysis through Mass Wasting Events Mapping in Lunar Permanently Shadowed Regions, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6664, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6664, 2025.

High-speed impacts are the most fundamental of the currently known geological process in the Solar System. Luna preserves a comprehensive record of impacts since its formation 4.53 billion years age (Ga). Particles of silicate glass formed by impact melting may have recorded the timing of the impact event and reflected the composition of crustal target materials. Previous studies have used ³⁹Ar-⁴⁰Ar and U-Pb chronometric systems to date lunar impact glasses, while their source characteristics were assessed using major and trace element data. The return of the Chang'e 5 sample provides an opportunity for a more comprehensive analysis of lunar impact history by comparing the ages of impact glasses from different locations.

In this study, we collected approximately 800 sets of isotopic age data and corresponding major and trace element data for impact glasses, primarily from samples returned from the Apollo series of missions and the recent Chang’e 5 mission. Impact glasses for which no age data could be obtained were removed. Impact flux curves were generated by normalizing the estimated age data. Sampling points on the lunar nearside show three distinct curve patterns. The impact flux curves of Chang'e 5 and Apollo 12 exhibit a common, prominent impact interval during the lunar Copernicus Period. The impact flux curves based on the Apollo 17 samples show only one prominent impact interval, namely the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) Event period (3.8-4.1 Ga). The intermediate region samples (Apollo 14, 15,16) exhibit both of these common, prominent impact intervals. These three impact flux curve patterns may be related to the geographic distribution of the sampling sites. To validate this potential relationship, we utilized a global catalog of lunar impact craters containing over 1.3 million craters to analyze the distribution of craters of similar diameter in contemporary regions. Preliminary results indicate that there are differences in the distribution of impact craters across different regions within the same geological period. These differences may be related to the Moon's rotation and orbital characteristics. 

How to cite: zhao, S. and fan, J.: Geospatial analysis of lunar impacts craters: a meta-analysis of impact glasses from all Apollo and Chang'e 5 missions, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-7589, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-7589, 2025.