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War, Plague No Match for Deforestation in Driving CO2 Buildup

By Guest PostJanuary 22, 2011Environmentagriculture, Antarctica, atmosphere, black death, black death in europe, burning of coal and oil, carbon dioxide, China, conquest of the americas, deforestation, demand for gasoline, earth, Environment, fall of the ming dynasty, forests, genghis khan, global carbon budget, global carbon cycle, greenland, human impact on climate, industrial era, julia pongratz, ken caldeira, mongol hordes, mongol invasions in asia, vegetation cover

Stanford, CA — Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes had an impact on the global carbon cycle as big as today’s annual demand for gasoline. The Black Death, on the other hand, came and went too quickly for it to cause much of a blip in the global carbon budget. Dwarfing both of these events, however, has been the historical trend towards increasing deforestation, which over centuries has released vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as crop and pasture lands expanded to feed growing human populations. Even Genghis Kahn couldn’t stop it for long. (more…)

Global Rivers Emit Three Times IPCC Estimates of Greenhouse Gas Nitrous Oxide

By Guest PostDecember 21, 20103 commentsEnvironmentagriculture, atmosphere, atmospheric ozone layer, chelsea crenshaw, denitrification, dinitrogen, global, greenhouse gas, henry gholz, human activities, inert gas, ipcc, jake beaulieu, microbes, microbial process, nitrogen, nitrous oxide, oxide emissions, ozone, river networks, stratospheric, waterways

*Waterways receiving nitrogen from human activities are significant source*

What goes in must come out, a truism that now may be applied to global river networks.

Human-caused nitrogen loading to river networks is a potentially important source of nitrous oxide emission to the atmosphere. Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change and stratospheric ozone destruction. (more…)

Plant ‘Breathing’ Mechanism Discovered

By Guest PostJuly 14, 2010Science1970, agriculture, carbon dioxide, carnegie institution, climate change, driving force, Germany, global ecology, hydrology, infrared light, joseph berry, jülich, leaf-scale, marie curie, nir, otto lange, pigments, radiation, research center, roland pieruschka, seminal work, stomata, transpiration, weather forecasting

Palo Alto, CA — A tiny, little-understood plant pore has enormous implications for weather forecasting, climate change, agriculture, hydrology, and more.

A study by scientists at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology, with colleagues from the Research Center Jülich in Germany, has now overturned the conventional belief about how these important structures called stomata regulate water vapor loss from the leaf – a process called transpiration.

(more…)