Participants answered four questions concerning their experience writing a haiku based on a geoscience extract. Data were categorised as being part of the Task Process or Task Meaning. The themes involved in the Task Process were Identification of significant information, Distillation of information and Metamorphosis of text, while the themes related to Task Meaning were made up of Enjoyable, Challenging (which has sub-themes Frustrating and Restricted) and Valuable.

In this editorial we expand upon the brief advice in the first editorial of Geoscience Communication (Illingworth et al., 2018), illustrating what constitutes robust and publishable work for this journal and elucidating its key elements. Our aim is to help geoscience communicators plan a route to publication and to illustrate how good engagement work that is already being done might be developed into publishable research.

In the spring of 2020, in response to the escalating global COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic, the European Geosciences Union (EGU) moved its annual General Assembly online in a matter of weeks. This paper explores the feedback provided by participants who attended this experimental conference and identifies four key themes that emerged from analysis of the survey (connection, engagement, environment, and accessibility). The responses raise important questions about the format of future conferences.

Current science communication initiatives in universities draws from media and journalism to encourage scientists to be competent communicators of their research in order to show the relevance of scientific knwowledge to societal concerns. An alternative but less popular source of inspiration is from marketing and public relations. Here, science communication is reappraised through the lens of three leading marketing paradigms: 'make and sell', 'sense and respind' and 'guide and co-create'.

In this study we investigate what poetry written about volcanoes from the 1800s to the present day reveals about the relationship between humanity and volcanoes, including how it evolved over that time frame. This analysis reveals that the human–volcano relationship is especially centred around the sense of identity that volcanoes provide to humans, which may follow from both positive and negative events, and has a spiritual element to it.

To many non-specialists, the science behind climate change can appear confusing and alienating, yet in order for global mitigation efforts to be successful it is not just scientists who need to take action, but rather society as a whole. This study shows how poets and poetry offer a method of communicating the science of climate change to the wider society using language that they not only better understand, but which also has the potential to stimulate accountability and inspire action.

Game worlds in modern computer games, while they include very Earth-like landscapes, are ultimately fake. Since games can be used for learning, we wondered if people pick up wrong information from games. Using a survey we tested if people with a background in geoscience are better than people without such a background at distinguishing if game landscapes are realistic. We found that geoscientists are significantly better at this, but the difference is small and overall everyone is good at it.

Urban centres worldwide are adversely affected by flooding and air pollution. Effective communication between experts and citizens is key to understanding and limiting the impact of these hazards, as citizens have valuable knowledge based on their day-to-day experiences. In this study, we compare five different communication formats that can facilitate the required dialogue and explore the best ways and optimal circumstances in which these can be implemented.

Climate change is real, it is happening now, and it will not be stopped by the sole efforts of scientists. This study shows how poetry and open conversation can be used to develop a dialogue around mitigating climate change with different communities, including faith groups and people living with disabilities. Furthermore, it shows how this dialogue can help us to better understand the opportunities that these communities present in tackling the negative effects of human-made climate change.

Globally we are facing both an air quality crisis and a communication emergency. Communication efforts so far have been based on a one-way provision of information from experts to society, and have arguably failed in their mission to foster a more engaged society, or to result in cleaner air. This paper supports the case for moving away from one-way communication, and identifies five benefits of a practical two-way communication between experts and citizens in order to engender positive change.

Here, we aim to better understand the potential for using video games in volcanic hazard education with at-risk communities. A study using a bespoke-designed video game – St. Vincent's Volcano – was trialled on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent in 2015. Preliminary data analysis demonstrates 94 % of study participants had an improved knowledge of volcanic hazards after playing the game, leading us to conclude that video games could be a logical progression for education and outreach activities.

Hazard scientists rarely meet the people that are actually at risk – those in communities prone to natural threats. This paper outlines an attempt to develop a transdisciplinary approach to train geoscientists, using early career researchers in an EU integrated training network studying tectonic processes and geohazards. By integrating local perspectives into the reflection on communication, we explore the form that new strategies for public communication and community engagement might take.

This paper provides empirical evidence for the value of using a psychology-based approach to communication of hydrology and hazards. It demonstrates the use of the "mental models" approach to risk assessment used in a regional geoscience context to explore the conceptions of the geological subsurface between experts and non-experts, and how that impacts on communication.

This paper presents a validated method and data set for new retrievals of trace gas concentrations and temperature from the ARIES infrared spectrometer instrument on the UK Atmospheric Research Aircraft (www.faam.ac.uk). This new capability for the aircraft will allow new science to be done because of the way it can sense information about the atmosphere without having to physically pass through it (remote sensing). This will allow us to better understand the make-up of the lower atmosphere.

This paper presents airborne measurements of greenhouse gases collected in the European Arctic. Regional scale flux estimates for the northern Scandinavian wetlands are derived. These fluxes are found to be in excellent agreement with coincident surface measurements within the aircraft's sampling domain. This has allowed a significant low bias to be identified in two commonly used process-based land surface models.