Tag Archives: atmosphere

New Research Will Help Shed Light on Role of Amazon Forests in Global Carbon Cycle

By Guest PostFebruary 1, 2013Environmentabsorbing, alan di vittorio, Amazon, amazon basin, amazon forest landscape, analytical method, annual carbon accumulation, atmosphere, berkeley lab, biogeochemical process, biogeochemistry, brazil, carbon cycle, carbon cycling, carbon dioxide pollution, carbon sequestration, central amazon, climate change, climatic warming, co2 concentration, CO2 emissions, daniel marra, dar roberts, earth, forest carbon budgets, forest mortality patterns, gabriel ribeiro, Germany, global climate system, global warming effect, human activities, hurricane katrina, impact, jeffrey chambers, joerg tews, manaus, max planck institute, mortality map, natural disturbances, old growth forests, pixel, planet, plot based analyses, positive feedback mechanism, robinson negron juarez, satellite images, simulation modeling, spatial scale, superstorm sandy, terrestrial ecosystems, tree mortality patterns, trends, tropical, tulane university

Berkeley Lab scientists devise new tools for detecting previously unknown tree mortality.

The Earth’s forests perform a well-known service to the planet, absorbing a great deal of the carbon dioxide pollution emitted into the atmosphere from human activities. But when trees are killed by natural disturbances, such as fire, drought or wind, their decay also releases carbon back into the atmosphere, making it critical to quantify tree mortality in order to understand the role of forests in the global climate system. Tropical old-growth forests may play a large role in this absorption service, yet tree mortality patterns for these forests are not well understood.

Now scientist Jeffrey Chambers and colleagues at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have devised an analytical method that combines satellite images, simulation modeling and painstaking fieldwork to help researchers detect forest mortality patterns and trends. This new tool will enhance understanding of the role of forests in carbon sequestration and the impact of climate change on such disturbances. (more…)

Analysis of Greenland Ice Cores Adds to Historical Record and May Provide Glimpse into Climate’s Future

By Guest PostJanuary 30, 2013Environmentalpine research, Antarctica, Arctic, arctic sciences section, atmosphere, belgium, boulder, canada, change, China, climate, climate conditions, denmark, dorthe dahl-jensen, earth climate, eemian interglacial, eemian like, eemian period, france, future, future climate, Germany, global temperatures rise, greenland ice cores, greenland ice sheet, historical record, ice ages, ice sheet, Iceland, Japan, jim white, last interglacial period, national science foundation, neem, northern greenland, northern hemisphere, paleo climate models, sea-level rise, south korea, subsurface ice layers, Sweden, switzerland, the netherlands, united kingdom, united states, university of colorado, university of copenhagen, west antarctic

The International North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) project results indicate that melting of Antarctic ice sheet may have contributed more to sea level rise than melting of the Greeland ice sheet some 100,000 years ago

A new study that provides surprising details on changes in Earth’s climate from more than 100,000 years ago indicates that the last interglacial–the period between “ice ages”–was warmer than previously thought and may be a good analog for future climate, as greenhouse gases increase in the atmosphere and global temperatures rise.

The research findings also indicate that melting of the massive West Antarctic ice sheet may have contributed more to sea-level rise at that time than melting of the Greenland ice sheet. (more…)

Cassini Suggests Icing on a Lake

By Guest PostJanuary 9, 2013Scienceair on titan, atmosphere, cassini mission, change, cornell university, cycle of precipitation, ethane, evaporation, floating ice, hydrocarbon ice, icing, ithaca, jason hofgartner, jonathan lunine, lake, linda spilker, liquid hydrocarbon, liquid methane, methane, model, moon, NASA, nitrogen gas, northern hemisphere, organic molecule, origin, pasadena, radio energy, saturn, sea, sea ice, southern hemisphere, surfaces of lakes, temperature, terrestrial life, titan, water

It’s not exactly icing on a cake, but it could be icing on a lake. A new paper by scientists on NASA’s Cassini mission finds that blocks of hydrocarbon ice might decorate the surface of existing lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbon on Saturn’s moon Titan. The presence of ice floes might explain some of the mixed readings Cassini has seen in the reflectivity of the surfaces of lakes on Titan.

“One of the most intriguing questions about these lakes and seas is whether they might host an exotic form of life,” said Jonathan Lunine, a paper co-author and Cassini interdisciplinary Titan scientist at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. “And the formation of floating hydrocarbon ice will provide an opportunity for interesting chemistry along the boundary between liquid and solid, a boundary that may have been important in the origin of terrestrial life.” (more…)

A New Way to Study Permafrost Soil, Above and Below Ground

By Guest PostJanuary 6, 2013Environmentarctic landscape, arctic tundra, atmosphere, barrow region, berkeley lab, carbon dioxide, cessna aircraft, climate change, electrical resistance tomography, electromagnetic data, geophysical measurements, greenhouse gasses, ground penetrating radar, large spatial scales, lidar, lidar airborne measurements, methane, microtopography, ngee arctic project, permafrost layer, permafrost soils, polygons, remote sensing device, remote sensing tools, surface topography, susan hubbard, terrestrial ecosystem, trapped carbon

Berkeley Lab research could lead to a better understanding of the Arctic ecosystem’s impact on the planet’s climate

What does pulling a radar-equipped sled across the Arctic tundra have to do with improving our understanding of climate change? It’s part of a new way to explore the little-known world of permafrost soils, which store almost as much carbon as the rest of the world’s soils and about twice as much as is in the atmosphere.

The new approach combines several remote-sensing tools to study the Arctic landscape—above and below ground—in high resolution and over large spatial scales. It was developed by a group of researchers that includes scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). (more…)

Boosting Galactan Sugars Could Boost Biofuel Production

By Guest PostDecember 23, 2012Environmentai oikawa, april liwanag, arabidopsis thaliana, atmosphere, berit ebert, berkeley lab, bioenergy fuel crops, biofuels, carbon neutral, carsten rautengarten, cellulosic biomass, denmark, diesel, emilie rennie, enzyme, ethanol, ferment, fuels, galactan, galactan synthase, galactose, gals1, gals2, gals3, gasoline, gt92 enzyme, gt92 proteins, henrik scheller, jet fuels, mads clausen, mathias andersen, mechanical stress, miscanthus, overexpressors, pentoses, plant cell walls, polymer, six carbon sugar, snowfall, switchgrass, technical university, wind, yeast, yves verhertbruggen, β galactan synthase

Collaboration at JBEI Identifies the First Enzyme Linked to Galactan Synthesis

Galactan is a polymer of galactose, a six-carbon sugar that can be readily fermented by yeast into ethanol and is a target of interest for researchers in advanced biofuels produced from cellulosic biomass. Now an international collaboration led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) has identified the first enzyme capable of substantially boosting the amount of galactan in plant cell walls.

Unlike ethanol, advanced biofuels synthesized from the sugars in plant cells walls could replace gasoline, diesel and jet fuels on a gallon-for-gallon basis and be dropped into today’s engines and infrastructures with no modifications required. Also, adanced biofuels have the potential to be carbon-neutral, meaning they could be burned without adding excess carbon to the atmosphere. Among the key challenges to making advanced biofuels cost competitive is finding ways to maximize the amount of plant cell wall sugars that can be fermented into fuels. (more…)

A Better Route to Xylan

By Guest PostNovember 13, 2012Sciencealex schultink, aromatic compound, atmosphere, biofuel, biofuel generation, biomass, carbon, cell wall, cellulose, cellulosic biofuel, component, coumaric acid, dawn chiniquy, dwarf phenotype, earth, extraction, ferulic, gene, glycosyltransferases, gt61 enzymes, henrik scheller, jbei, lignin, material, metric tons, pamela ronald, plant, rice, saccharification, solar energy, store, sugar, vaishali sharma, xax1, xax1 mutant, xylan, xylan chain

Joint BioEnergy Institute Researchers Find New Access to Abundant Biomass for Advanced Biofuels

After cellulose, xylan is the most abundant biomass material on Earth, and therefore represents an enormous potential source of stored solar energy for the production of advance biofuels. A major roadblock, however, has been extracting xylan from plant cell walls. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have taken a significant step towards removing this roadblock by identifying a gene in rice plants whose suppression improves both the extraction of xylan and the overall release of the sugars needed to make biofuels.

The newly identified gene – dubbed XAX1 – acts to make xylan less extractable from plant cell walls. JBEI researchers, working with a mutant variety of rice plant – dubbed xax1 – in which the XAX1 gene has been “knocked-out” found that not only was xylan more extractable, but saccharification – the breakdown of carbohydrates into releasable sugars – also improved by better than 60-percent. Increased saccharification is key to more efficient production of advanced biofuels. (more…)

China and the Internet

By Guest PostNovember 2, 2012Media, Politics, Technologyatmosphere, blogger, China, china forum, chinese farmer, chinese life, chinese society, delaware, double edged knife, earthquake, east china, Facebook, false information, gap, governmental control, immunity, internet, internet companies, internet users, joseph chen, journalist, li gang, li qiming, mobile devices, netizens, normal university, nuclear pollution, number, poems online, poetry contest, poor, popular activities, public opinion, renren inc, rich, sanjiu yan, shanghai, site, Social networking, social tension, Twitter, university, university student, urban areas, weibo, weibo today

Internet bringing change to Chinese society, China Forum speaker says

The Internet is affecting every facet of Chinese life and shaping public opinion, according to Sanjiu Yan, the guest speaker at the inaugural China Forum, held Friday, Oct. 26, at the University of Delaware.

Yan, a former journalist who is now the dean of the College of Communication at East China Normal University in Shanghai, presented the first talk in the China Forum, a new monthly lecture series hosted by the Confucius Institute at UD. (more…)

Not-So-Permanent Permafrost

By Guest PostOctober 26, 2012Environmentalaska, arctic permafrost, atmosphere, carbon, chemical cycles, climate change, climate prediction, climate warming, director, earth, ecosystems, Environment, fairbanks, frozen ground, gelisols, geological survey, jennifer harden, lakes, marcia mcnutt, mikhail kanevsiy, model, nitrogen, organic matter, peaty, rivers, scenarios, scientist, soil scientist, university, US, usgs, warmer planet, warming phenomenon, water resources

MENLO PARK, Calif. — As much as 44 billion tons of nitrogen and 850 billion tons of carbon stored in arctic permafrost, or frozen ground, could be released into the environment as the region begins to thaw over the next century as a result of a warmer planet according to a new study led by the U.S. Geological Survey. This nitrogen and carbon are likely to impact ecosystems, the atmosphere, and water resources including rivers and lakes. For context, this is roughly the amount of carbon stored in the atmosphere today.

The release of carbon and nitrogen in permafrost could exacerbate the warming phenomenon and will impact water systems on land and offshore according to USGS scientists and their domestic and international collaborators. The previously unpublished nitrogen figure is useful for scientists who are making climate predictions with computer climate models, while the carbon estimate is consistent and gives more credence to other scientific studies with similar carbon estimates. (more…)