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Study Shows Wind Turbines on Farmlands May Benefit Crops

By Guest PostDecember 19, 20101 commentEnvironmentatmosphere, carbon dioxide, corn, crop, crops, domestic source of energy, earth surface, electricity, fungal infestations, gene takle, generate, laser, lidar, midwestern farm, moisture levels, photosynthesis, renewable energy, research, soybean, takle, turbine blades, wind turbines

Wind turbines in Midwestern farm fields may be doing more than churning out electricity. The giant turbine blades that generate renewable energy might also help corn and soybean crops stay cooler and drier, help them fend off fungal infestations and improve their ability to extract growth-enhancing carbon dioxide from the air and soil.

The preliminary findings of a months-long study that examines how wind turbines on farmlands interact with surrounding crops were presented on December 16 at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. The presentation was made by researcher Gene Takle of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and Julie Lundquist, assistant professor in the University of Colorado at Boulder’s atmospheric and oceanic studies department. (more…)

High-Tech Software and Unmanned Planes Allow Scientists to Keep Tabs on Arctic Seals

By Guest PostDecember 15, 2010Environment, Natureaerial photos, aircraft, Arctic, arctic ringed seal, atmosphere, bearded, bering sea, cameras, climate scientists, earth, elizabeth weatherhead, four species of arctic seals, greenhouse gases, ice floes, marine, noaa, novel project, peter boveng, polar ecosystems, ribbon seals, ringed, scan eagle, sea ice, seal populations, seals, spotted, temperatures, terrestrial mammals

A novel project using cameras mounted on unmanned aircraft flying over the Arctic is serving double duty by assessing the characteristics of declining sea ice and using the same aerial photos to pinpoint seals that have hauled up on ice floes.

The project is the first to use aircraft to monitor ice and seals in remote areas without putting pilots and observers at risk, said Elizabeth Weatherhead of the University of Colorado at Boulder, who is leading the study team. Weatherhead is a senior scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, a joint venture of CU-Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (more…)

Rewarding Eco-Friendly Farmers Can Help Combat Climate Change

By Guest PostDecember 2, 2010Environmentatmosphere, carbon dioxide, chesapeake bay, cier, climate change, combat, eco-friendly, ecosystem markets, farmers, fertilizer, fertilizer run-off, greenhouse gas, management practices, maryland, maryland farmers, matthias ruth, nitrogen, nutrient trading market, phosphorous, techniques, total maximum daily load, trading market

*UMD Study Advises State on Creation of ‘Nutrient Trading Market’*

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Financially rewarding farmers for using the best fertilizer management practices can simultaneously benefit water quality and help combat climate change, finds a new study by the University of Maryland’s Center for Integrative Environmental Research (CIER). (more…)

Air Above Dead Sea Contains Very High Levels of Oxidized Mercury

By Guest PostNovember 30, 2010Environmentatmosphere, bromine, chlorine, daniel obrist, dead sea, fluorine, global ecosystems, halogens, hebrew, iodine, mercury, non-metal elements, oxidized mercury, polar regions, potent neurotoxin, sea of salt, yam ha-melah

*First such levels measured outside polar regions*

In Hebrew, the Dead Sea is called Yam ha-Melah, the “sea of salt.” Now measurements show that the sea’s salt has profound effects on the chemistry of the air above its surface.

The atmosphere over the Dead Sea, researchers have found, is laden with oxidized mercury. Some of the highest levels of oxidized mercury ever observed outside the polar regions exist there. (more…)

NSF Signs $34.5-million Operating Agreement With University Of Wisconsin as Antarctic Neutrino Detector Nears Completion

By Guest PostNovember 22, 2010Scienceantarctic ice sheet, atmosphere, atomic nuclei, big science, digital optical modules, distant galaxies, earth, Germany, ice, icecube, icecube neutrino observatory, jim yeck, karl a erb, Milky Way, national science foundation, neutrino detector, neutrinos, south pole station, stars, sub-atomic particles, telescope, university of wisconsin-madison, water

The National Science Foundation has signed a five-year, $34.5-million agreement with the University of Wisconsin-Madison to operate a unique telescope–a cubic kilometer in volume–buried in the Antarctic ice sheet between 1,400 meters and 2,400 meters deep.

The collaborative agreement covers the cost of operating the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, located in the ice under the U.S. Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The observatory records the rare collisions of neutrinos, elusive sub-atomic particles, with the atomic nuclei of the water frozen into ice. Neutrinos come from the sun, cosmic rays interacting with the Earth’s atmosphere, and dramatic astronomical sources such as exploding stars in the Milky Way and other distant galaxies. Trillions of neutrinos stream through the human body at any given moment, but they rarely interact with regular matter, and researchers want to know more about them and where they come from. (more…)

‘Novel Ocean-Crust Mechanism Could Affect World’s Carbon Budget’

By Guest PostNovember 17, 2010Environment, Scienceadam soule, atmosphere, baja peninsula, bathymetry, carbon, climate, CO2, crust, daniel lizarralde, earth, gas, giora proskurowski, greenhouse gases, guaymas basin, gulf of california, hydrothermal vent, jeff s seewald, methane, molten magma, north guaymas, ocean, red sea, s adam soule, seafloor, tectonic plates, undersea ridges, volcanic rocks

The Earth is constantly manufacturing new crust, spewing molten magma up along undersea ridges at the boundaries of tectonic plates. The process is critical to the planet’s metabolism, including the cycle of underwater life and the delicate balance of carbon in the ocean and atmosphere.

Now, scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have observed ocean crust forming in an entirely unexpected way—one that may influence those cycles of life and carbon and, in turn, affect the much-discussed future of the world’s climate.

Working at the Guaymas basin in the Gulf of California, WHOI scientists confirmed what they suspected from brief glimpses of the area during previous missions: The inner Earth is injecting swaths of magma called sills as far as 50 kilometers away from the plate boundary, on each side of the ridge —nearly 10 times farther from such an active ocean ridge than had been observed before. (more…)

Lower Part of Earth’s Atmosphere is Warming, Data Review Concludes

By Guest PostNovember 16, 2010Environmentatmosphere, climate models, earth, lower part, north carolina state university, troposphere, warming

The troposphere, the lower part of the atmosphere closest to the Earth, is warming in ways that are broadly consistent with both theoretical expectations and climate models, according to a new scientific study from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the NOAA-North Carolina State University Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS).

Since the development of the first climate models in the 1960s, the troposphere has been projected to warm along with the earth’s surface because of the increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This expectation has not significantly changed even with major advances in climate models. (more…)

Better Weather: Water-vapor Profiling System Could Result in More Accurate, Less Costly Forecasting

By Guest PostNovember 4, 20102 commentsEnvironment, Nature, Scienceatmosphere, bennett aerospace, david roberts, georgia institute of technology, laser radar, lidar, light detection and ranging, prototype, researchers, Technology, water vapor, water vapor profiler, wav-pro, weather forecasting

A vehicle from the National Severe Storms Laboratory observes conditions around a tornado in Wyoming during June of 2009. Image credit: Mike Coniglio, NOAA/NSSL

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Bennett Aerospace are leveraging light detection and ranging (lidar) technology to develop a ground-based system that will automatically measure water vapor in the atmosphere. Known as”WaV-Pro^TM,” for Water Vapor Profiler, the system aims to provide more frequent data collection that could dramatically improve weather forecasting.

Initial work on the project began in mid-2009, when Bennett Aerospace, in collaboration with the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), won a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to develop design requirements for the system. Recently, the researchers won a Phase II grant to build and test critical components needed for a final operating prototype of WaV-Pro. (more…)

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