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BAMOS March 2017
Conference Report : AGU Fall Meeting 2016
Damien Irving , Postdoctoral Fellow , CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere
The American Geophysical Union ( AGU ) Fall Meeting has come and gone for another year , and this time I was lucky enough to be in San Francisco during December for all the action . With over 20,000 participants spanning the full range of Earth and space sciences , the conference was like nothing I ’ ve ever experienced . To give you an idea of the sheer scale of the event , the daily classifieds listing of presentation and poster titles was 64 pages long , and the twice-daily poster sessions featured more than 2000 posters . Since it ’ s impossible to have a common plenary and / or opening address for so many people , the many and varied parallel sessions simply commenced at 8am on Monday and ran relentlessly through until 6pm on Friday .
While new science was obviously the focus of the week , concerns regarding the upcoming inauguration of Donald Trump loomed large . A “ Stand Up for Science ” rally was held during the Tuesday lunch break , and in a fiery plenary address California Governor Jerry Brown vowed to challenge any attempt by Trump to interfere with climate science . “ If Trump turns off the satellites , California will launch its own damn satellite ”, Brown said to loud applause . “ We ’ re going to collect that data .”
The Meeting was particularly noteworthy for AMOS , with a number of Australians featuring during the annual Honours Ceremony . Matthew England and Harry Hendon were elected as Fellows of AGU , while Tom Beer received the 2016 International Award for his outstanding contribution to furthering the Earth and space sciences and using science for the benefit of society in developing nations . I was particularly grateful to Matthew and Susan Wijffels ( who delivered the annual Sverdrup Lecture ), who invited myself and a number of other ( less accomplished ) AMOS scientists to join their table at the Honours Banquet .
My primary concern heading into the conference was that with such a broad focus , there would be little science that was highly relevant to my work . That concern ended up being completely unfounded , as I spent the week dashing between sessions wishing I had more time to fit in some nonclimate related talks . Away from the comfortable familiarity of an AMOS conference or discipline-specific workshop , I also found myself networking more effectively and with a much more diverse group of scientists than I normally would . One such interaction resulted in me visiting Dartmouth in the weeks after the conference to see an atmospheric scientist working with water vapour isotopes , which is definitely not a connection I would have made in my Australian oceanclimate sphere .
While I don ’ t think the AGU Fall Meeting is an event I ’ d attend every year , it would be well worth it every few years and is certainly an experience I think every AMOS scientist should have at least once .
Now THAT is a poster session . Image : Damien Irving .