American Geophysical Union Totally Explained

Everything about The American Geophysical Union totally explained

The American Geophysical Union (or AGU) is a nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting of over 45,000 members from over 140 countries. AGU's activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of scientific information in the interdisciplinary and international field of geophysics. The geophysical sciences involve four fundamental areas: atmospheric and ocean sciences; solid-Earth sciences; hydrologic sciences; and space sciences.
The mission of the AGU is

to promote the scientific study of Earth and its environment in space and to disseminate the results to the public,
to promote cooperation among scientific organizations involved in geophysics and related disciplines,
to initiate and participate in geophysical research programs,
to advance the various geophysical disciplines through scientific discussion, publication, and dissemination of information.

History

The AGU was established in 1919 by the National Research Council and for more than 50 years operated as an unincorporated affiliate of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1972 AGU was incorporated in the District of Columbia and membership was opened to scientists and students worldwide.

Publications

AGU is the publisher of several scientific periodicals, including the weekly Eos newspaper and eighteen peer reviewed research journals, notably the Journal of Geophysical Research and Geophysical Research Letters.

Meetings

AGU holds an annual meeting in San Francisco every December (known as the Fall meeting), the largest annual scientific conference in the world (with more than 14,000 attendees in 2007), and a joint assembly co-sponsored with other societies such as the Geochemical Society, the Mineralogical Society of America, the Canadian Geophysical Union, and the European Geosciences Union every Spring (April through May) in various locations throughout the world. The latter grew out of AGU's annual Spring meeting, which had, for many years, been held in Baltimore, until declining interest caused AGU to move the meeting in different locations, starting with Boston in 1998. With the meeting in Nice, France, in 2003, it became known as the Joint Assembly. In addition to these meetings, which cover all areas of the geophysical sciences, AGU also sponsors many specialized meetings that are intended to serve the needs of particular scientific disciplines or geographical areas, including the Ocean Sciences Meetings and Western Pacific Geophysical Meetings which are held in even numbered years. Small, highly focussed meetings are offered through the Chapman Conferences.

Position statement on climate change

The AGU issued a position statement on climate change in December 2003, and revised and reaffirmed the statement in 2007 . The revised statement begins:
ť The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system--including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons--are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century.

The statement was drafted by Marvin Geller, John Christy and Ellen Druffel and revised and reaffirmed by the AGU Council.

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