AGU 2010 Fall Meeting: Media Advisory 4

9 December 2010

Joint Release

Moscone Convention Center
San Francisco, California
13–17 December 2010

Press Conference Schedule; Briefings Streamed Online; Where to pick up badges

Contents of this message:

  1. Press Conference Schedule
  2. How to Access 2010 Fall Meeting Press Conferences via Internet
  3. Where Do I Pick Up My Press/News Media Badge?
  4. Press Rooms Update
  5. News Media Registration Information
  6. Who’s coming

For important information regarding visas for international reporters and hotel bookings at meeting rates, please see: Media Advisory 1.

For additional information about searching the scientific program, please see: Media Advisory 2.

For information about special events, the ceremony/reception for journalism award winners, sending press releases to the meeting, the NCSWA holiday dinner, and the press field trip, please see: Media Advisory 3.

1. Press Conference Schedule

The following schedule of press conferences is subject to change, before or during Fall Meeting. Press conferences may be added or dropped, their titles and emphases may change, and participants may change. All updates to this schedule will be announced in the Press Room (Room 3001A, Moscone West, Level 3, adjacent to the Level 3 lobby). Press conferences take place in the Press Conference Room (Room 3000), diagonally across the hall from the Press Room.

Times for press conferences are Pacific Standard Time. Session numbers at the end of each press conference listing may show only the first in a series of related sessions on the topic.

(Note to Public Information Officers: If you have prepared press releases or other handouts for press conferences listed below, please email electronic copies of the documents to Peter Weiss ([email protected]) so they can be made available online to reporters calling in from outside the meeting.)

ERUPTIONS FROM THE FAR-SIDE: NEW GLOBAL VIEWS OF THE SUN

Monday, 13 December
1000h

New observations of the Sun indicate that the search for the factors that play a role in the initiation and evolution of eruptive and explosive events, sought after for improved space-weather forecasting, requires knowledge of much, if not all, of the solar surface field. The combination of observations from two NASA missions, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) enable us to view much of the solar surface and atmosphere simultaneously and continuously for the first time. These near-global observations often show long-distance interactions between magnetic areas that exhibit flares, eruptions, and frequent minor forms of activity. These interactions were previously suspected, but have never been observed until now. We analyzed a series of flares, filament eruptions, coronal mass ejections, and related events which occurred on 1–2 August 2010. These events extended over a full hemisphere of the Sun, only two-thirds of which is visible from the Earth’s perspective.

Participants:

Karel Schrijver
Research Scientist, Lockheed Martin, Palo Alto, California, USA

Alan Title
SDO AIA principal investigator, Professor of Physics, Stanford University and Senior Fellow, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center, Palo Alto, California, USA

Madhulika Guhathakurta
SDO program scientist, NASA Headquarters, Washington DC, USA

Tom Bogdan
Director, NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, Boulder, Colorado, USA

Sessions: SH11B, SH13A

NEW VIEWS OF URBAN HEAT ISLANDS

Monday, 13 December
1100h

Weather watchers have long noted that city centers tend to be warmer than their surrounding environs. These “urban heat islands,” which are produced when pavement and other city infrastructure replaces open land and vegetation, can boost temperatures by a few degrees and in some cases by as much as 11 °Celsius (20 °Fahrenheit) or more. Recent findings, based on satellite data, offer new insight into how heat islands can vary across cities, threaten public health, and increase air conditioning usage in ways that might inadvertently exacerbate dangerous heat waves.

Participants:

Ping Zhang
Research Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Earth Resource Technology, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA

Benedicte Dousset
Researcher, Hawai’i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA

Cécile De Munck
Scientist, National Centre of Meteorological Research (CNRM), Météo-France, France

Sessions: B11J, B21E

PRESS AVAILABILITIES: SCIENTIFIC LEADERS HOLDREN AND LUBCHENCO

Monday, 13 December
1400h

Two of the Obama Administration’s top science officers — John P. Holdren and Jane Lubchenco — will be available for a half-hour each to take questions from reporters: Holdren from 2 to 2:30 pm, and Lubchenco from 2:30 to 3 pm. Dr. Holdren is the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He will have just given AGU’s inaugural Science and Policy Union Lecture, entitled Scientists, Science Advice, and Science Policy in the Obama Administration (U12B, 12:30-1:30 pm). Dr. Lubchenco is the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). She will be giving a talk later on Monday afternoon entitled NOAA Response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill — Protecting Oceans, Coasts and Fisheries (U14A-03, 4:48 pm).

Participants:

John P. Holdren
Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President, Washington, D.C., USA

Jane Lubchenco
Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C., USA

Sessions: U12B, U14A

VOYAGE TO THE SULAWESI SEA: EXOTIC LIFE, VOLCANIC DISCOVERIES

Monday, 13 December
1500h

With live video from the seafloor to U.S. and Indonesian scientists ashore, a recent, major expedition has uncovered a deep-ocean trove of potentially new species in the Sulawesi Sea (also known as the Celebes Sea). Exploiting the use of “telepresence” technology to aid discovery, expedition scientists and fellow experts at far-flung locations used powerful telecommunications links — extraordinary for a marine expedition — to connect to each other and to cameras scanning the ocean depths in real time. In their explorations, the researchers discovered and mapped submarine volcanoes, revealing a large hydrothermally active volcano with towering mineralized chimneys and a thriving, exotic-animal ecosystem. Also emerging from the expedition are measurements of the “Indonesian Throughflow,” which plays an important role in global distribution of heat by ocean currents.

Participants:

Dave Butterfield
Senior Research Scientist, NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and University of Washington Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Oceans, Seattle, Washington, USA

Stephen R. Hammond (moderator)
Chief Scientist, NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Newport, Oregon, USA

Santiago Herrera
Graduate Student, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA

Wahyu Pandoe
Senior Research Scientist, Indonesia Agency for the Assessment & Application of Technology (BPPT), Jakarta, Indonesia

Sugiarta Wirasantosa
Senior Research Scientist, Agency for Marine and Fisheries Research, Jakarta, Indonesia

Sessions: OS11D, OS13C

CITY LIGHTS AFFECT AIR POLLUTION

Monday, 13 December
1600h

New measurements taken from aircraft over the Los Angeles, California region indicate that human-made lighting is influencing chemical reactions in the atmosphere, altering nighttime compositions and concentrations of some airborne pollutants. A check on the relative influence of moonlight on such reactions (based on ground-level measurements made in Boulder, Colorado) finds that human-made lighting is much more of a factor in atmospheric chemistry than is natural nocturnal light. These findings could indicate increasing shifts in air-pollution’s distinctive night-versus-day chemical profiles.

Participant:

Harald Stark
Research Scientist, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado, USA, and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA

Sessions: A21C

FOREST TIPPING POINTS AND CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES AND GLOBALLY

Monday, 13 December
1700h

Historic patterns of vegetation change, fire activity, and runoff and erosion show that landscapes often respond gradually to incremental changes in climate and land-use stressors until a threshold is reached. Once past that tipping point, big, fast landscape changes may result, such as tree die-off or episodes of broad-scale fire or erosion. The stressors that contribute to tree mortality tipping points can develop over landscape and even sub-continental scales. The forests and woodlands of the southwestern United States demonstrated this from the late 1990s to the present, a period that has included severe drought and unusual warmth, in their history of forest die-offs due to drought stress, bark beetles, and severe fire activity across millions of hectares. The researchers also measured how tree growth within each population is related to climate variability by comparing tree-ring growth records from more than 1,000 tree populations across the United States with historical climate data. They conclude that Southwestern forests are particularly sensitive to drought and warmth, which will likely limit their growth and result in further forest die-offs in this century. Similarly, a recent global overview of drought and heat-induced tree mortality, led by one of the researchers, reveals emerging climate change risks for the world’s forests.

Participants:

Craig Allen
Research Ecologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Jemez Mountain Field Station, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA

Park Williams
Post-doctoral Researcher, Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA

Sessions: B32A, GC53A

ICE VOLCANOES AND HOT PLASMA EXPLOSIONS

Tuesday, 14 December
0900h

This briefing will present two new results from NASA’s Cassini mission to Saturn with never-before-seen videos. One finding is a potential ice volcano — or cryovolcano — on Saturn’s moon Titan. Scientists have been debating for years whether cryovolcanoes exist on ice-rich moons and if they do, what characteristics they have. The panelists will discuss why this area appears to be a particularly convincing example of a cryovolcano. Secondly, they note periodic explosions of plasma, or hot ionized gas, with mysterious, periodic magnetic field and radio signals that were detected from Saturn. Cassini has been able to reveal hot plasma clouds that are typically invisible to the human eye, enabling scientists to make a major breakthrough in understanding Saturn’s behavior.

Panelists:

Randolph Kirk
Geophysicist, U.S. Geological Survey Astrogeology Science Center, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

Jeffrey Kargel
Planetary Scientist, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Pontus Brandt
Senior Staff Scientist, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, USA

Marcia Burton
Cassini Fields and Particles Investigation Scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, USA

Sessions: P22A, SM31C

CATCHING LIGHTNING IN THE ACT

Tuesday, 14 December
1000h

How lightning works is still largely a mystery, even 250 years after Ben Franklin’s famous kite-and-key experiment. But researchers have made some progress in understanding exactly how lightning travels from a cloud to the ground, where it can strike buildings, trees and people. Within the past decade, researchers discovered that lightning emits x-rays. Now, they have created the world’s first x-ray images of lightning, capturing the lightning just before it strikes. Using a special x-ray camera, a hot lightning channel can be seen approaching the ground at almost 1/10 the speed of light. The fastest-ever recorded video of a natural lightning strike (at 300,000 frames/sec) was also taken during the summer of 2010. The images show how lightning creates ionized channels and spreads toward the ground, providing new insights into how its energy is released.

Participants:

Joseph Dwyer
Professor, Physics and Space Sciences Department, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida, USA

Dustin Hill
Graduate Student, International Center for Lightning Research & Testing Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA

Meagan Schaal
Graduate Student, Physics and Space Sciences Department, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida, USA

Sessions: AE13A, AE23A

CARBON CONSUMPTION AND EARTH’S CARRYING CAPACITY: CHALLENGES AHEAD

Tuesday, 14 December
1100h

New research details that we are, at an increasing rate, consuming more of the Earth’s annual output of plant material for food, clothing, paper, packaging and biofuels. This consumption has increased starkly even since 1995, when scientists at NASA first made this benchmark global measurement. The increased consumption is being driven both by sheer population growth but also higher per capita consumption across the globe. Great discrepancies remain, for instance, between the average North American’s and the average Southeast Asian’s consumption. As economies modernize and population continues to surge, scientists say the percentage of annual plant production consumed could rise significantly in coming decades. The trend raises questions about pushing Earth’s carrying capacity, depleting biodiversity, transitioning toward more monoculture and managed landscapes, creating greater regional imbalances between production and consumption, and leaving societies vulnerable to climate change.

Participants:

Marc Imhoff
Terra Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA

Rama Nemani
Senior Research Scientist, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA

Jennifer Harden
Project Chief, United States Geological Survey Soil Carbon Research at Menlo Park, Menlo Park, California, USA

Sessions: B31H, B33I, B41I

REDUCING A MAJOR CLIMATE-WARMING AGENT FROM THE ATMOSPHERE: EXCITING PROGRESS ON TWO FRONTS

Tuesday, 14 December
1300h

Only in recent years has black carbon, a form of particulate pollution associated with biomass burning and vehicle emissions, been recognized as a major contributor to global warming. V. Ramanathan’s team at Scripps Institution of Oceanography will discuss the latest results from the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) monitoring network, which show encouraging signs from two decades of California clean air laws. Nithya Ramanathan of UC Los Angeles will present a novel household technology that her research team transformed into a scientific monitoring tool for soot and other forms of black carbon in developing countries.

Participants:

V. Ramanathan
Distinguished Professor of Climate and Atmospheric Science, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of San Diego, San Diego, California, USA

Nithya Ramanathan
Assistant Research Professor of Computer Science, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA

Sessions: A32C, ED11A

GLORY AND AQUARIUS—NEW CLIMATE SENTINELS: WORKSHOP FOR SCIENCE WRITERS

Tuesday, 14 December
1600h

The launching of two new spacecraft in 2011 should expand our understanding of Earth’s climate. Glory, a NASA mission set to launch no earlier than February, will study the roles of two critical elements of Earth’s climate system: the sun’s total solar irradiance and atmospheric airborne particles called aerosols. Both solar irradiance and aerosols have significant direct and indirect effects on Earth’s climate, and the two instruments on Glory will provide new insights into these complex processes. Then in June, NASA and the Space Agency of Argentina, Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), will jointly launch the Aquarius/Satelite de Aplicaciones Cientificas (SAC)-D mission to make space-based measurements of how the concentration of dissolved salt varies across Earth’s ocean surface. This information will offer new insights into ocean circulation, the global water cycle and climate. During this science reporter/writers’ workshop, scientists from both missions will help reporters better understand the fundamental processes both spacecraft will study and how they are linked to Earth’s climate. They will also provide helpful background on the individual mission concepts, instruments and measurement approaches.

Participants:

Michael Mishchenko
Glory Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, New York, USA

Greg Kopp
Glory Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) Instrument Scientist, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado, USA

Gary Lagerloef
Aquarius Principal Investigator, Earth & Space Research, Seattle, Washington, USA

Yi Chao
Aquarius Project Scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, USA

Sessions: A11E, A21J, A31B, GC21B, GC33C, OS54B, OS53E

UNSTABLE ANTARCTICA: WHAT’S DRIVING ICE LOSS?

Wednesday, 15 December
0900h

New results based on data from airborne and satellite missions show a clear picture of mechanisms driving ice loss in West Antarctica. Scientists have previously shown that West Antarctica is losing ice, but how that ice is lost remained unclear. Now, using data from a range of NASA’s Earth observing satellites and from the ongoing Operation IceBridge airborne mission, scientists have pinpointed ice loss culprits above and below the ice. Continued monitoring of Antarctica’s rapidly changing areas is expected to improve predictions of sea level rise.

Participants:

Ted Scambos
Glaciologist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA

Bob Bindschadler
Glaciologist, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, and University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA

Michael Studinger
Operation IceBridge Project Scientist, Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA

Sessions: C22B, C13D, C11A, C44A

NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN SUBMARINE EXPLORATION: WORKSHOP FOR SCIENCE WRITERS

Wednesday, 15 December
1000h

Scientists will discuss two craft, each about to bring something new and noteworthy to underwater scientific research. Not since the 1970s has the venerable Alvin—a deep submergence vehicle that once located a lost hydrogen bomb and surveyed the wreck of the Titanic—undergone the kind of major overhaul that awaits it next year. The $40 million renovation will include a new titanium sphere (where the crew rides)— with more windows, a thicker shell, and the ability to dive 2,000 meters deeper than before — plus gobs of improved sensors and instruments. Meanwhile, next year will mark the first field tests (in Lake Tahoe in March) of an extraordinary unmanned submarine 8-plus meters long (28 feet) and weighing more than a ton that collapses into a cigar-shaped rod less than 60 centimeters (2 feet) in diameter, in order to be lowered a half mile down through a borehole in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, so it can be used to study melting of the ice from below. The meeting’s exhibit hall will display the entire sub and a mockup of Alvin’s new sphere.

Participants:

Ross Powell
Professor, Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, USA

Reed Scherer
Professor, Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, USA

Susan Humprhis
Senior Scientist, Geology & Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA

Peter Girguis
Assistant Professor of Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Sessions: OS13C

ASH AND AVIATION: DEVELOPING BETTER FORECASTS, MONITORING AND STANDARDS

Wednesday, 15 December
1100h

Following the April 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano, Iceland, the global aviation community focused attention on the issue of safe air operations in airspace affected by volcanic ash. The enormous global disruption to air traffic in the weeks after the eruption has placed added emphasis for the global air traffic management system as well as on the equipment manufacturers to reevaluate air operations in ash-affected airspace. Under the leadership of the International Civil Aviation Organization and the World Meteorological Organization, efforts are being made to address modifications of international procedures for air traffic management, a new assessment of equipment vulnerability, and efforts to detect and to more precisely forecast the distribution and concentration of volcanic ash are underway. While technical and policy changes will help improve flight safety, there continues to be a role for earth scientists to work with the aviation community to improve monitoring of volcanoes, especially in remote regions, and in understanding of explosive volcanic processes.

Participants:

Tom Casadevall
Geologist Emeritus, U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, Colorado, USA

Marianne Guffanti
Geologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia, USA

Sessions: V44C

MUMMIFIED ARCTIC FOREST PROVIDES CLUES OF DRAMATIC CLIMATE CHANGE

Thursday, 16 December
0800h

No trees grow on windswept Ellesmere Island in the northernmost reaches of Canada. But Ohio State University researchers have just discovered signs that things were different millions of years ago in the mummified remains of a forest uprooted in an avalanche. Melting snow cascading off the side of a glacier uncovered broken tree trunks, branches, and even leaves perfectly preserved with their DNA intact. These remains constitute the northernmost mummified plant material ever found in the Canadian Archipelago. They harken back to a time when the Arctic was far warmer than today and offer clues as to how an ancient ecosystem responded to dramatic climate change.

Participant:

Joel Barker
Research Scientist, School of Earth Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA

Sessions: PP51A

THE LAST ARCTIC SEA-ICE REFUGE?

Thursday, 16 December
0900h

With summer sea ice projected to disappear from much of the Arctic within decades, researchers are investigating whether ice may persist year-round somewhere, and thus provide a last stand for polar bears, seals and other creatures that cannot survive without it. Studies of ice-formation patterns, currents and winds suggest there may be such a place — but for it to act as a refuge, nations must plan soon to prevent it from being compromised by shipping, oil extraction and other human activities.

Participants:

Stephanie L. Pfirman
Hirschorn Professor and Department Chair, Department of Environmental Science, Barnard College/Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, New York City, New York, USA

Robert Newton
Research Scientist, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, New York, USA

George M. Durner
Research Zoologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Anchorage, Alaska, USA

Bruno Tremblay
Assistant Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Sessions: C43E, U13C

OPPORTUNITY ROVER HEADED FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT ON MARS, WITH HELP FROM ORBIT

Thursday, 16 December
1000h

As the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity gets closer to its next long-term destination, orbital observations from orbit are adding to the destination area’s allure. Opportunity’s science team chose to begin driving the robotic field geologist toward the 22-kilometer-wide Endeavour Crater in 2008, after four productive years studying other sites in what was initially planned as a three-month mission. Even if the rover couldn’t complete the hazard-avoiding route of nearly 20 kilometers to the closest part of Endeavour’s rim, Opportunity would find interesting things to study along the way, the team reckoned.

Researchers using the CRISM mineral-mapping spectrometer (Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars) on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter during the first half of Opportunity’s trek indentified exposures of clay minerals in the rim of Endeavour. Endeavour is an ancient crater that formed before the sulfate-rich, layered sedimentary rocks that Opportunity has been examining thus far. The presence of clay minerals on its rim suggests an earlier and less-acidic wet environment than the wet environment indicated by evidence Opportunity has found so far. This fall, researchers are using CRISM in an enhanced-resolution mode to help choose a specific destination on the rim for Opportunity. Also, orbital observations suggest mineral exposures much closer to the rover that could be a type that Opportunity has not yet investigated.

Panelists:

Ray Arvidson
Mars Exploration Rover deputy principal investigator and CRISM team member, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Janice Bishop
CRISM team member, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., and SETI Institute, Mountain View, California, USA

John Callas
Mars Exploration Rover project manager, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, USA

Sessions: P51F, P54A

THE APRIL 2010 M7.2 BAJA, CALIF. QUAKE: OBSERVATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Thursday, 16 December
1300h

On April 4, 2010, a long-locked segment of the boundary between the massive Pacific and North American tectonic plates ruptured violently just south of California’s border with Mexico. While not “The Big One” that Southern Californians have long feared, the resulting magnitude 7.2 earthquake—the region’s largest in nearly 120 years—was nonetheless an important earthquake. Felt throughout northern Baja California and a broad region of the American Southwest, the quake killed two, injured hundreds and caused substantial damage. But beyond its obvious physical effects, the quake has proven to be one of the most complex ever documented along the Pacific/North American tectonic plate margin, providing scientists a unique opportunity to better understand earthquake processes along this volatile plate boundary. New techniques of remote sensing and image analysis developed by NASA and other agencies have revealed numerous surprises about the quake and have greatly aided field geologists in mapping and understanding the rupture. In this briefing, observations of the quake and its aftermath by scientists at NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, California Geological Survey and the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education at Ensenada, Baja, Calif., will be detailed, along with results of new data analyses that show how this quake has increased the potential for additional large earthquakes throughout Southern California.

Participants:

Eric Fielding 
Geophysicist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, USA

John Fletcher
Professor, Geology Department, Earth Sciences Division, Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education at Ensenada, Baja California (CICESE), Mexico

Jay Parker
Software Engineer, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, USA

Jerry Treiman
Geologist, California Geological Survey, Los Angeles, California, USA

Sessions: T51E, T53B

2. How to Access 2010 Fall Meeting Press Conferences via Internet

If you don’t have it already, download into your computer the Adobe Flash player (It’s a quick download), available for free.

At the time of the press conference of interest, access this AGU press conferences web page with your browser.

If you wish to be able to ask questions (via chat only), you must first register (click the Register link at the bottom of the page. Please register using your real name (without spaces)).Once registered, you need only log in to take part in subsequent press conferences. (Please note: This year, AGU will not provide telephone call-in to Fall Meeting press conferences.)

At the press conferences web page, you will see a webstreaming window on top that will show, to the right, the speakers’ PowerPoint slides in real time (including video), and, to the left, live video of the speaker table and panelists. You will hear audio of the press conference via the same web page (To expand the webstreaming window to full screen, click on the icon in the lower right margin of the window (Esc key to cancel).).

Below the webstreaming window, you will see the chat window. During press conferences, an AGU staff member will monitor the chat line and read your questions to the press conference speakers. You will hear the speakers’ answers via the web page.

If speakers provide electronic versions of handouts, scientific papers, or other relevant documents for reporters, AGU staff will upload those materials to the chat window, where they will appear as hyperlinked filenames. To download a document of interest, click on its link.

To report difficulties remotely accessing AGU press conferences, please do so via the chat line. If it is not functioning, please email AGU’s press officers at [email protected] or phone the Press Room at +1 (415) 348-4406.

These instructions are also available here.

3. Where Do I Pick Up My Press/News Media Badge?

Online registration has closed. Members of the news media who have preregistered online for the meeting and are on the Who’s Coming list (see Item 6 below) must pick up their Press/News Media badges in the main registration area — not in the Press Room. This year, registration is in the Moscone Convention Center South building (whereas the press rooms are in Moscone West — sigh!). Also, AGU has implemented a new badging system so, please bear with us!

We are planning to have preprinted badges for all preregistered press available for pick up at the News Media registration booth in Moscone South. Here’s how to find that booth: Enter Moscone South, go down any of the escalators and enter Halls A-C. Straight ahead will be the main registration area. Go to the left to the Meeting Services area. Among the booths there, you will see the News Media registration booth. Please be prepared to show identification when you ask for your badge.

Others who have not registered online may register on site at the News Media registration booth. If you are registering on site, you must fill out a registration form at the booth. Please be sure to have appropriate proof of your status, per Item 5, below. Your badge will be printed at the booth. News media registration is complimentary. The entrances to the Moscone South building are on Howard Street between Third and Fourth streets. The entrances to the Moscone West building are on Fourth Street between Howard St. and Minna St.

4. Press Rooms Update

The Press Room is Room 3001A in Moscone West, Level 3.

(This room has an unusual number (the added A) because it is a custom-made room that’s only here during the AGU Fall Meeting and that is located between Room 3001 and the Level 3 Lobby.)

Press conferences take place in the Press Conference Room, Room 3000, which is also on Level 3, and is diagonally across the hall from the Press Room.

The Press Room provides working space for reporters, including two phone lines (with no charge for business calls), two computer terminals and a printer, wi-fi for use with your own laptop, and space for socializing. The main phone number in the Press Room for incoming calls is +1 415 348 4406.

The Press Room opens daily at 0730h, Monday, 13 December through Friday, 17 December. The room closes daily at 1830h , except for Friday, 17 December, when it will close at 1400h. Some meals and other refreshments will be provided in the Press Room for news media registrants. Breakfast (from 0730) will be available on Monday – Wednesday. Lunch (from 1230) will be available Monday-Thursday. Coffee, tea, and soft drinks will be available all day, Monday to Friday.

5. News Media Registration Information

Eligibility for press registration is limited to the following persons:

  • Working press employed by bona fide news media: must present a press card, business card, or letter of introduction from an editor of a recognized publication.
  • Freelance science writers: must present a current membership card from NASW, a regional affiliate of NASW or other association of science journalists recognized by the World Federation of Science Journalists, or from the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ); or evidence of by-lined work pertaining to science intended for the general public and published in 2009 or 2010; or a letter from the editor of a recognized publication assigning you to cover Fall Meeting.
  • Public information officers of scientific societies, educational institutions, and government agencies: must present a business card.

Note: Representatives of publishing houses, for-profit corporations, and the business side of news media must register at the main registration desk at the meeting and pay the appropriate fees, regardless of possession of any of the above documents. They will not be accredited as Press at the meeting. Scientists who are also reporters and who are presenting at this meeting (oral or poster session) may receive News Media credentials if they qualify (see above), but must also register for the meeting and pay the appropriate fee as a presenter for the day they are presenting.

News Media registrants will receive a badge that provides access to any of the scientific sessions of Fall Meeting, as well as to the Press Room and Briefing Room. No one will be admitted without a valid badge.

Details will be provided in a subsequent advisory about where preregistered members of the media will pick up their badges and where those who have not preregistered will be able to register onsite. In either case, please be prepared to show identification.

6. Who’s Coming

The online list of journalists who have preregistered for the Meeting is updated daily.