Category Archives: Environment

Today’s Severe Drought, Tomorrow’s Normal

By Guest PostDecember 7, 2011Environmentatmospheric greenhouse gases, balance, benjamin santer, berkeley lab, canada, century, climate models, david easterling, drought, dust bowl, evapotranspiration, global climate, jay lawrimore, Mexico, michael wehner, noaa, normal occurrence, North America, oklahoma, precipitation, richard heim, russell vose, severe drought conditions, simulations, state-of-the-art, texas, united states, warming planet

*Berkeley Lab scientists part of team that analyzed 19 state-of-the-art climate models.*

While the worst drought since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s grips Oklahoma and Texas, scientists are warning that what we consider severe drought conditions in North America today may be normal for the continent by the mid-21^st century, due to a warming planet.

A team of scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) came to this conclusion after analyzing 19 different state-of-the-art climate models. Looking at the balance between precipitation and evapotranspiration—the movement of water from soil to air—they found that no matter how rainfall patterns change over the next 100 years, a warming planet leads to drought. Their results were published in the December 2011 issue of the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Hydrometerology. (more…)

Researchers Assess Radioactivity Released to the Ocean from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Facility

By Guest PostDecember 7, 2011Environmentbaltic and black seas, cesium 134, cesium 137, chernobyl accident, coastal waters, contamination, fate of radioactivity, fukushima dai ichi nuclear power plants, fukushima nuclear power plants, groundwater, history of contaminant, iodine 131, isotope, japan agency for marine earth science and technology, ken buesseler, levels of radioactivity, limnology, march 11 earthquake, marine biota, marine life, marine sediments, masao fukasawa, meteorological research institute, mext, michio aoyama, northwest coast of japan, ocean, ocean mixing processes, plants, radioactive leaks, radioactivity, radioactivity from fukushima, radionuclides, reactor facility, salt lake city, salt water basins, tepco, tsunami, woods hole oceanographic institution

With news this week of additional radioactive leaks from Fukushima nuclear power plants, the impact on the ocean of releases of radioactivity from the plants remains unclear. But a new study by U.S. and Japanese researchers analyzes the levels of radioactivity discharged from the facility in the first four months after the accident and draws some basic conclusions about the history of contaminant releases to the ocean.

The study, conducted by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution chemist Ken Buesseler and two Japanese colleagues, Michio Aoyama of the Meteorological Research Institute and Masao Fukasawa of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, reports that discharges from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plants peaked one month after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that precipitated the nuclear accident, and continue through at least July. Their study finds the levels of radioactivity, while quite elevated, are not a direct exposure threat to humans or marine life, but cautions that the impact of accumulated radionuclides in marine sediments is poorly known. (more…)

Interior Releases First-of-its-Kind Regional Study as Part of National Assessment of Carbon Storage in U.S. Ecosystems

By Guest PostDecember 5, 2011Environmentagricultural field, amount of carbon, atmospheric warming, biological carbon sequestration, carbon emissions, carbon sequestration, carbon sink, carbon storage, chemical cycles, david j hayes, department of the interior, eastern iowa, eastern montana, emissions of nitrous oxide, forests, fossil fuel, great plains region, great plains region of montana, great plains study, greenhouse gas, greenhouse gas emissions, ken salazar, marcia mcnutt, methane, natural resources, rangelands, senator, southern texas, U.S. Geological Survey, underground rock formations, united states, us ecosystems, usgs, wetlands

*Report evaluates amount of carbon absorbed by wetlands, grasslands and forests in the Great Plains region*

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of the Interior today released the first in a series of regional studies measuring the amount of carbon stored in U.S. ecosystems. Published by Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the study examines the current and projected future carbon storage in the Great Plains region, as part of a nation-wide assessment.

“This is truly groundbreaking research that, for the first time, takes a landscape-level look at how our lands naturally store carbon and explores how we can encourage this capability in ways that enhance our stewardship of natural resources,” said Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. Hayes. “Our landscapes are helping us to absorb carbon emissions that would otherwise contribute to atmospheric warming.” (more…)

Powerful Mathematical Model Greatly Improves Predictions for Species Facing Climate Change

By Guest PostDecember 4, 2011Environment, Nature, Scienceatmosphere and oceans, beetle, bridgett vonholdt, carbon dioxide emissions, coat color gene, coat color phenotype, daniel macnulty, daniel stahler, earth temperature, ecological impacts, ecological model, ecological parameters, ecosystem, Environment, environmental change, general model, genetics, global warming, gray wolf, grizzly bears, harmony, health of populations, heterozygotes, high arctic, integral projection model, ipm, mathematical model, new model, plants, polar bear, population ecology, population genetics, predictive model, quantitative genetics, robert wayne, species, sub fields of ecology, tim coulson, trophic cascade, wolf, wolf population, wolves, yellowstone, yellowstone national park

UCLA life scientists and colleagues have produced the most comprehensive mathematical model ever devised to track the health of populations exposed to environmental change.

The research, federally funded by the National Science Foundation, is published Dec. 2 in the journal Science.

The team’s groundbreaking integral projection model, or IPM, unites various sub-disciplines of population biology, including population ecology, quantitative genetics, population genetics, and life-span and offspring information, allowing researchers to link many different data sources simultaneously. Scientists can now change just a single variable, like temperature, and see how that affects many factors for a population. (more…)

E. Coli Bacteria Engineered to Eat Switchgrass and Make Transportation Fuels

By Guest PostDecember 4, 2011Environment, Scienceagricultural waste, anthe george, bacteria, berkeley lab, biofuel production, biofuels, blake simmons, bradley holmes, cellulolytic, cellulose, chemistry, christopher voigt, danielle tullman ercek, diesel, e coli, enzyme, eric steen, gasoline, green, gregory bokinsky, hemicellulolytic, hemicelluloses, ionic liquid, jay keasling, jbei, jeffrey dietrich, jet fuels, joint bioenergy institute, lignin, lignocellulosic biomass, lignocellulosic feedstocks, microbes, milestone, molten salt, pamela peralta yahya, renewable alternative, strains of escherichia coli bacteria, sugars, switchgrass biomass, synthesize, taek soon lee, woody material

*Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) Researchers Reach Milestone on the Road to Biofuels*

A milestone has been reached on the road to developing advanced biofuels that can replace gasoline, diesel and jet fuels with a domestically-produced clean, green, renewable alternative.

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have engineered the first strains of Escherichia coli bacteria that can digest switchgrass biomass and synthesize its sugars into all three of those transportation fuels. What’s more, the microbes are able to do this without any help from enzyme additives. (more…)

Yale-led Team Finds CO2 Levels Plunged as Antarctica Froze

By Guest PostDecember 3, 2011Environmentalgae, atmosphere, carbon dioxide levels, climate transition, co2 and climate change, critical condition, cryosphere, earth, eocene epoch, eocene to oligocene, freezing of antarctica, fundamental link, geochemist, global climate change, global cooling, greenhouse gases, ice sheets, icing of antarctica, mark pagani, matthew huber, molecules, oligocene, polar ice caps, robert m deconto, sea level, temperatures, yale university, zhonghui liu

A Yale University-led research team has found evidence that carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere plunged prior to and during the initial icing of Antarctica, about 34 million years ago. The new findings provide further evidence of atmospheric carbon dioxide’s role as a major trigger of global climate change.

“CO2 is tracking global cooling at that time,” said Yale geochemist Mark Pagani, lead author of a paper published online Dec. 1 in the journal Science. “It’s important to demonstrate that there are obvious linkages between CO2 and climate change. It’s one more piece of evidence that CO2 is a primary lever on climate.” (more…)

Petroleum-eating Mushrooms

By Guest PostDecember 2, 2011Environmentcontaminated soil, crude petroleum, mushroom spores, petroleum eating mushrooms, phytoremediation, soil decontamination

Take a Petri dish containing crude petroleum and it will release a strong odor distinctive of the toxins that make up the fossil fuel. Sprinkle mushroom spores over the Petri dish and let it sit for two weeks in an incubator, and surprise, the petroleum and its smell will disappear. “The mushrooms consumed the petroleum!” says Mohamed Hijri, a professor of biological sciences and researcher at the University of Montreal’s Institut de recherche en biologie végétale (IRBV). (more…)

Minorities Pay More for Water and Sewer

By Guest PostNovember 29, 2011Culture, Environment, Generalbirmingham, bygone economic era, cleveland, detroit, environmental practice, michigan state university, pittsburgh, poster child, product of racism, rachel butts, racial minorities, sewer infrastructure, shrinking cities, st. louis, stephen gasteyer, structural inequality, wastewater, water and sewer

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Racial minorities pay systemically more for basic water and sewer services than white people, according to a study by Michigan State University researchers.

This “structural inequality” is not necessarily a product of racism, argues sociologist Stephen Gasteyer, but rather the result of whites fleeing urban areas and leaving minority residents to bear the costs of maintaining aging water and sewer infrastructure. (more…)