After braving excruciating cold, ice-bound airports, and snow-covered mountain passes to get here, some 21,000 Earth Scientists have descended on San Francisco for the annual AGU Fall Meeting. They’ll all be happy to know that the National Weather Service calls for freezing temperatures in all areas except San Francisco tonight. So everyone from Back East can still pretend they’re having a balmy California vacation while we locals wrap our heads around coping with frosty morning windshields (not expected in the City).

After the outdoors-wear-fleece- and jean- clad horde overtakes downtown establishments this evening, the meeting gets into full swing tomorrow morning with a mind-blowing array of talks, posters, exhibits, special reunions, and of course the collaboration meetings. While carving out your slice of the full schedule can be daunting, one of the primary goals of many AGU attendees is to take advantage of nearly every Earth Scientist you know being in the same place at once, and having catch-up research meetings galore to update, renew, and forge collaborations.

I’ve had a busy week of prep, and I have a full week of such things, so I won’t have time to post updates during the meeting, but there are other hardy bloggers who will. AGU has compiled a Blog Roll of bloggers covering the meeting (sign up if you’re not listed!). There’s already a great round-up of virtual resources covering and attending the meeting, compiled at Magma Cum Laude.

The best place to find quick updates (from any of us, likely) is Twitter.

I’ll be participating in a panel on scientific/academic blogging Tuesday evening, 5-6pm in 3000 Moscone West, along with veteran bloggers Jessica Ball of Magma Cum Laude, Laura Guertin of Teaching with Technology, and the AGU blogosphere’s guiding soul Larry O’Hanlon.

On Wednesday and Thursday afternoons you can find me showing off the immersive 3D KeckCAVES software over in the exhibit hall, and I’ll be talking about my own geologic research on earthquakes at fault bends on Thursday morning.

Enjoy the science, and enjoy the city!