Friday 19^th June – 15:30 to 16:30 - room S.DB4.245

"TBD"

by Zakaria GHAZOUI (PhD, GFZ-Potsdam and Ghent University)

 

Friday 26^th June – 15:30 to 16:30 - room S.DB4.245

"It's about Time: Timescales in Eruption Forecasting using Big (or Not-So-Big) Open-Access Volcano Data"

by Julie DE GROOTE (PhD, NTU, Earth Observatory, Singapore)

 
2025-2026 IGEOS SEMINARS:

June 2026: "Physical controls on the large-scale ocean circulation beneath ice shelves revealed by a simple diagnostic model" by Prof. Adrian Jenkins (Northumbria University, UK)

June 2026: "Nitrogen isotope constraints on biogeochemical variability across the Anthropocene" by Dr. Alan Foreman ( Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz)

May 2026: "Assessing the impact of subsea permafrost thaw on carbon release from the Arctic shelf seafloor!" by Alexis Geels (BGEOSYS, ULB)

April 2026: "How to listen to the earth's whispers through optic fiber" by Olivier Fontaine (G-Time, ULB)

April 2026: "Lithogenic fraction of China's riverine DIC is double the global average during 2000s and 2010s" by Yanzi Yan (BGEOSYS, ULB)

March 2026: "Tracing the Origin and Transport of Atmospheric Dust in Coastal East Antarctica: a Geochemical Approach" by Dr. Sarah Wauthy (G-Time, ULB)

March 2026: "Toward new map of basal melt rate in Antarctic grounding zone" by Dr. Faye Elgart (Glaciology, ULB)

February 2026: "Enhancing Volcanic Cloud Monitoring from Space using Artificial Intelligence" by Federica Torrisi (Instituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Italy)

December 2025: "Tracing Southern Ocean biogeochemical change from million-year to centennial timescales using biomineral-bound nitrogen isotopes" by Dr. Simone Moretti (Max Planck Institute for Chemistry)

November 2025: "POLARIS: POLar AI Research on climate-ice Sheet interactions" by Dr. Christof Kittel (VUB/ULiège)

November 2025: "Are terrestrial manganese oxides a hidden potential for critical metals ?" by Dr. Augustin Dekoninck (G-Time, ULB)

November 2025: "Afrotropical Forest Futures under Climate and Land-Use Change" by Dr Félicien Meunier (UGent)

October 2025: "How Volcano Seismology, Hydroacoustics and Pattern Recognition help us protect tourists on volcanoes and everyone’s WiFi – insights from recent case studies in the SW Pacific" by Bastian Steinke (G-Time, ULB)

October 2025: "Organo-mineral interactions in permafrost environments affected by physical degradation" by Maxime Thomas (UCLouvain)

September 2025: "Structural and Microbial Controls on Methane Seepage in Polar Regions" by Dr Maria De La Fuente Ruiz (BGEOSYS, ULB)

September 2025: "Seismology of Landslides: Insights from Irazú and Aguas Zarcas, Costa Rica" by Dr Esteban J. Chaves (OVSICORI, Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica)

A new study reveals for the first time how certain cyanobacteria can stabilize a type of calcium carbonate mineral that is usually extremely unstable. This discovery, made by Neha Mehta, an FNRS researcher in the Department of Biogeochemistry and Earth System Modeling (BGeoSys) at the Faculty of Science, and her team, opens new prospects in the field of materials science and environmental research.

Link to the article
Link to the ULB press release

Emerging climate impact on carbon sinks in a consolidated carbon budget

Despite the adoption of the Paris Agreement ten years ago, fossil CO₂ emissions continue to rise, pushing atmospheric CO₂ levels to 423 ppm in 2024 and driving human-induced warming to 1.36°C, within years of breaching the 1.5°C limit . Accurate reporting of anthropogenic and natural CO₂ sources and sinks is a prerequisite to tracking the effectiveness of climate policy and detecting carbon sink responses to climate change. Yet notable mismatches between reported emissions and sinks have so far prevented confident interpretation of their trends and drivers. Here, we present and integrate recent advances in observations and process understanding to address some long-standing issues in the global carbon budget estimates. We show that the magnitude of the natural land sink is substantially smaller than previously estimated, while net emissions from anthropogenic land-use change are revised upwards. The ocean sink is 15% larger than the land sink, consistent with new evidence from oceanic and atmospheric observations. Climate change reduces the efficiency of the sinks, particularly on land, contributing 8.3 ± 1.4 ppm to the atmospheric CO₂ increase since 1960. The combined effects of climate change and deforestation turn Southeast Asian and large parts of South American tropical forests from CO₂ sinks to sources. This underscores the need to halt deforestation and limit warming to prevent further loss of carbon stored on land. Improved confidence in assessments of CO₂ sources and sinks is fundamental for effective climate policy.