Windy City Hosts 2014 Annual Meeting of American Association for the Advancement of Science

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This week, our writer Sarah will be lucky enough to attend the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Sarah Frazier of Earthzine is headed to Chicago. She's pictured here in Grindelwald, Switzerland.

Sarah Frazier of Earthzine is headed to Chicago. She’s pictured here in Grindelwald, Switzerland.

This week, I will be lucky enough to attend the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

AAAS, the publisher of the journal Science, holds its annual meeting in a different city each year. This year, I’ll be traveling to Chicago, Illinois, to attend the meeting, from Feb. 13-17.

Perusing the plenary lectures, topical lectures, and symposia, there are quite a few topics that may interest Earthzine readers.

Given the relevance and importance of climate science, it’s not surprising that a large portion of this year’s AAAS events are centered on climate change. Some of the climate science events to take place in Chicago include:

‰Û¢ Diana Wall: Lessons from an Antarctic Desert: Documenting Climate Change and Measuring Impact on Soil Life (Topical Lecture)

‰Û¢ New Modeling Approaches to Inform Climate Change Understanding and Decision-Making

‰Û¢ Santa’s Revenge: The Impacts of Arctic Warming on the Mid-Latitudes

‰Û¢ Is It Possible to Reduce 80% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Energy by 2050?

‰Û¢ The Big Thaw: Impacts on Health of Marine Mammals and Indigenous People in the Arctic.

Many of the other symposia coincide well with Earthzine’s mission — to promote Earth observation with a mind on the nine Societal Benefit Areas.

One fascinating session on ‰ÛÏAgrobiodiversity and Global Change: New Linkages to Sustainability‰Û will cover the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) data for the maintenance of diverse and productive agricultural ecosystems.

There are even a few events devoted solely to the management an analysis of large datasets. The first event listed below should be of particular interest to Earthzine readers:

‰Û¢ Earth Observation Data Goes Open Access

‰Û¢ Statistical Methods for Large Environmental Datasets

‰Û¢ Unlocking the Power of Big Data by Integrating Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences.

A live video stream of select sessions is available through AAAS. The official meeting hashtag is #AAASmtg, so look for updates on Twitter. I’m at @sarahfrazier7.

My trip is funded by an Undergraduate Travel Fellowship from the National Association of Science Writers (NASW).

I’ll be taking notes and planning on a post-meeting story or two. Let me know of any topics you’d like to know more about.