GeoCinema 

High above the Earth’s North and South Poles, a steady stream of particles escapes from our atmosphere into space. Scientists call this mysterious outflow the “polar wind,” and for almost 60 years, spacecraft have been flying through it as scientists have theorized about its cause. The leading theory was that a planet-wide electric field was drawing those particles up into space. But this so-called ambipolar electric field, if it exists, is so weak that all attempts to measure it have failed – until now. In 2022, scientists traveled to Svalbard, a small archipelago in Norway, to launch a rocket in an attempt to measure Earth’s ambipolar electric field for the first time. This was NASA’s Endurance rocketship mission, and this is its story. Convener: Lacey Young

This short film presents the longest-running bare fallow experiment of the world, located a few kilometers away from Paris, France. Created in 1928 by the French agricultural engineer Albert Demolon, this long term experiment enables us, among many things, to measure the dynamics of carbon decay in soils and improves our understanding of how soils evolve under the impact of fertilizers. Convener: Amicie Delahaie

"Fire and Coral: The Fragile Balance of the Caribbean" highlights the fascinating research of Prof. Thomas Sheldrake and his team (Frank Förster and James Vincent) from the University of Geneva. They are studying how coral skeletons might enhance our understanding of tropical volcanic eruptions. We had the privilege of filming this exciting research project during a field mission in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in February 2024. Conveners: Thomas Sheldrake & James Vincent

ExploreICOS is a video series presenting the people, the stations and the activities of ICOS, the Integrated Carbon Observation System. ICOS produces standardised data on greenhouse gases, which is essential in understanding and mitigating climate change. Our data is being used by scientists, governments, and international organisations in their efforts to solve challenges caused by global warming. In the ExploreICOS series, we take you on a journey to the fantastic locations of our stations and introduce you to our scientists, technicians and other important people behind the data. ExploreICOS: Lampedusa - monitoring greenhouse gases in the ocean, atmosphere and ecosystem / The Lampedusa station in Italy is the only greenhouse gas station covering all the ICOS' thematic areas - the crew is monitoring greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, ecosystem and ocean. ExploreICOS: Greenhouse gas data from the heart of the Thuringian Basin / The Gebesee Ecosystem station is one of the longest-running Ecosystem stations on a crop site in the ICOS network. The station produces important greenhouse gas data that helps to assess the sustainability of agricultural management. In 2022, the crop of the year was sunflowers. ExploreICOS: Hegyhátsál – 30 years of atmospheric measurements / Hegyhátsál measurement station in western Hungary has been conducting atmospheric measurements since 1993. Joining ICOS helped Hungary strengthen its scientific capacity in this field of science and provide data for decision-makers. Convener: Karlina Ozolina

Through the lens of the ARTofMELT2023 expedition, "Chasing the Arctic Melt" tells a compelling story of scientific discovery and human resilience. Aboard the Swedish icebreaker Oden, researchers braved harsh Arctic conditions, wildlife encounters, and emotional highs and lows—joy, frustration, and uncertainty. The film highlights the science fuelling this pursuit as well as the camaraderie forged as the scientists set out on their mission to unveil the mechanisms driving the seasonal Arctic melt. More information about the expedition: https://www.su.se/artofmelt Convener: Stella Papadopoulou

What do freedom and protecting the earth have to do with each other? Quite a lot! The fact that our climate is as stable as it has been over the past millennia shouldn’t be taken for granted. This stability is the foundation on which our civilisation is built. But we are at a critical point: we are exceeding the planetary boundaries. We are releasing too many greenhouse gases and jeopardising the functioning of ecosystems. This has serious consequences for our society. After all, we need a stable planet as the basis for our freedom and a good life for all. Studio Silverback and PIK have produced a five-minute documentary film on this topic. The film focuses on the thoughts of children and young people and brings them together with scientific findings about our planet, and what the transition from Holocene to Anthropocene means for our societies. The project was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the German Science Year 2024 - Freedom. Convener: Lotta Bergfeld

The 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes occurred in a complex system of fault lines in the Mojave desert. Separated by 34 hours, the earthquakes were caused by ruptures in separate but nearby faults. In this study of the geophysical processes underlying these events the surface, known faults and the volumetric subsurface are modeled on HPC systems. Visualization techniques are used to analyze the simulation results in their three-dimensional context. Extended Video summary: https://sc23.supercomputing.org/proceedings/sci_viz/sci_viz_files/svs102s3-file1.pdf Convener: Alice-Agnes Gabriel

One of NASA’s most expansive and complex field campaigns took place over the month of September. The goal: to check the data that the new PACE satellite is collecting from orbit about Earth’s atmosphere and ocean. To do that NASA’s PACE-PAX (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem mission Postlaunch Airborne eXperiment) deployed several aircraft and ships from multiple locations in California including NASA's Armstrong Research Flight Center in Edwards, Marina, and Santa Barbara. Follow the scientists, sailors and pilots as they plan, fly, sail and re-plan during the tail end of the PACE-PAX validation campaign. Convener: Ryan Fitzgibbons

In ‘Echoes of the Rainforest’ Dael Sassoon and Encarni Montoya, palaeoecology specialists at GEO3BCN-CSIC, join forces with Peruvian environmental researchers and indigenous communities in the Pacaya-Samiria National Park to explore the critical work of studying, protecting and conserving Amazonian ecosystems. This short documentary offers a rare insight into how palaeoecology, through the detailed analysis of pollen samples, helps to understand climate change and its role in the conservation of the Amazon. The documentary highlights the vital collaboration between international research teams, Peru's scientific community, environmental activists and indigenous communities, highlighting conservation efforts and the central role of palaeoecology in uncovering the Amazon's past to anticipate its future. This documentary was produced for the MSCA (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions) project PALOMA, funded by the European Union. In association with GEO3BCN-CSIC Geoscience Barcelona. Convener: Dael Sassoon

A eulogy for glacier disappearance featuring an upright bass on a glacier in Iceland. Death of a Glacier is an interdisciplinary outreach project that likens glacier disappearance to death, accompanied by a classical music performance. The film was created as means of processing and lamenting the inescapably concerning data about our warming planet that geoscientists deal with every day. In contrast to the endless firehose of climate change data unrelentingly sprayed at the public, this film offers an alternative way to hear and hopefully feel the reality of climate change. Convener: Andrew Jones

The film is a deep-ocean exploration into hydrothermal vents and the life they support through chemosynthesis. These ecosystems thrive without sunlight and are under imminent threat from deep-sea mining. (Beyond Index Films - 2024) Associated session GD5.3: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/session/53068 Conveners: Thibaut Barreyre & Rohan Thomas

A team of scientists, experts in river ecology, undertake crucial research into a key environmental crisis of our time: the salinization of the planet's freshwaters. Throughout their journey along the River Gambia, they study the impact of this phenomenon on this socio-ecosystem, from the effects on biodiversity to changes in biogeochemical processes. They also evaluate the relationship of riverside communities with the river and how they are affected by salinization. This journey immerses us in the epicenter of a relentlessly advancing threat while searching for solutions and adaptation strategies to protect the future of this river. Conveners: Núria Catalán & Laura Carrau Pascual

The Cleancloud Helmos OrograPhic sIte experimeNt (CHOPIN: where mythology, aerosols, clouds and climate meet) campaign is a major observational activity of the Horizon Europe CleanCloud project. CHOPIN aims to understand the formation and evolution of mixed-phase clouds, and to improve & develop algorithms used for ground-based and spaceborne remote sensing of aerosols, clouds and their interactions. CHOPIN employs an extensive array of in situ and remote sensing instrumentation located at a unique and optimal high-altitude location at Mt. Helmos for targeted studies of aerosol-cloud interactions. The mountain is at the crossroads of many different air streams and is in a “climate hotspot”, and carries a rich history and mythology. This musical documentary is an account of the activities and sites involved in CHOPIN. Convener: Athanasios Nenes

Source To Sea is a film made by scientists for scientists about Finnish freshwater research. The story begins with snow, and the researchers trying to find out with isotopes, where the snow comes from and where does it go. Capturing scientists working on the hydrology and geomorphology of rivers from far inland, to the coast of Baltic Sea, where geologists are studying the sediments carried all the way into the sea. On the focus is the climate change, and how will it change the water cycle in Finland, if the rivers and the sea will not freeze in the future, and if the snow will turn to water. The film contains field research imagery and scientist interviews, filmed in 2022-2024, during three research projects, Digital Waters Flagship, Green-Digi-Basin and HYDRO-RI Platform, aiming to make digital twins of the river basins, while also educating the next generation of water scientists specialized in boreal and sub-arctic water resources. Conveners: Annukka Pekkarinen & Ville Kankare

Geologists of the Institute of Natural Sciences are venturing underground to help shape the future of mining. In the depths of the old mine of Mežica, Slovenia, they're testing sensors for a bio-inspired mining robot, to detect even the thinnest ore veins in the rock. Convener: Giorgia Stasi

In eastern DR Congo, disasters associated with natural hazards occur regularly. However, the general scarcity of reliable and accurate data collected on these events does not allow for a complete picture of their frequency and magnitude, thus hindering effective Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). To fill this gap, a network of citizen observers (CO) has been set up as part of a collaboration between the Centre de Recherche en Sciences Naturelles de Lwiro (CRNS, DR Congo), the Civil Protection (DR Congo) and the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Belgium). Using field images to illustrate the scale of events unfolding in the Kivu region, this video introduces the CO Kivu network, explains its core activity of monitoring and recording natural hazard disasters, and highlights its role towards scientists, land management authorities and communities.

In October, 2024 Jeff Munroe (Middlebury College) spent nearly three weeks traveling to 20 mineral dust collectors deployed on mountain summits in the southwestern United States for the DUST^2 Project, part of the Critical Zone Collaborative Network. This short film documents the majestic landscapes in which the collectors are located, and provides a sense of what it's like to conduct such a long stretch of solo fieldwork. Convener: Jeffrey Munroe

In September of 2024, Jeff Munroe (Middlebury College) and Gabriella Koltai (University of Innsbruck) conducted fieldwork for a project studying caves on the Ashley National Forest in the Uinta Mountains of Utah. They were joined by David Herron (US Forest Service) and Thomas Holmes (City Under Water Media), and were supported by the National Cave and Karst Research Institute, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. This short film presents scenes from the work, and advertises a public exhibition of photographs that will be on display at various locations this winter, starting in Vernal, UT (January 13 to February 28, 2025). Convener: Jeffrey Munroe

An Ocean in Bloom explores the intricate relationship between human activity, marine ecosystems, and the ongoing struggle against harmful algal blooms, specifically red tides. Through the voices of a NASA scientist, a Florida fishing captain, and medical professionals, the film delves into the devastating impacts of red tides on coastal communities, the economy, and marine life. With new groundbreaking satellite technology, NASA and the scientific community work to better understand and mitigate these destructive phenomena. The PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) mission extends and expands NASA’s long-term observations of our living planet from space, taking the Earth’s pulse in new ways. As time unfolds, the need for global awareness and action is essential to protect our oceans, as solutions lie not only in viewing our planet from space but also in our collective responsibility to safeguard the planet’s fragile ecosystems. Convener: Emme Watkins

What's in a Name highlights the development of a partnership between paleontologist Dr. Dave Lovelace and the Wind River Reservation community that led to the naming of three new paleontological taxa via multi-generational collaboration between tribal Elders and students. It is a journey that calls for a change in well-entrenched colonial practices throughout the sciences, and specifically to the process of how taxa are commonly named within the science of paleontology. Convener: Dave Lovelace