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NASA Map Sees Earth’s Trees in a New Light

By Guest PostFebruary 19, 2012Environment, Scienceaustralia, caltech, carbon, carbon cycle, climate change, cloud, data, earth, effects of topography, eucalyptus, flowering plants, forest, forest canopy, forest habitat, global map of forest height, height, high resolution map, icesat, laser pulse measurements, lidar, light detection and ranging, marc simard, modis, monitor, NASA, new zealand, satellites, south latitude, southern tropical forests, Space, spatial modeling, spatial resolution, trmm sensors, vegetation, worldclim database

PASADENA, Calif. – A NASA-led science team has created an accurate, high-resolution map of the height of Earth’s forests. The map will help scientists better understand the role forests play in climate change and how their heights influence wildlife habitats within them, while also helping them quantify the carbon stored in Earth’s vegetation.

Scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; the University of Maryland, College Park; and Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, Mass., created the map using 2.5 million carefully screened, globally distributed laser pulse measurements from space. The light detection and ranging (lidar) data were collected in 2005 by the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System instrument on NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat). (more…)

English Literature Influenced Prize-Winning Paleontologist

By Guest PostJanuary 14, 2012Science21st century, age of reptiles, ancient plant structure, carbon cycle, carboniferous period, cocktail party, dinosaurs, earth, ecology, evolution, excalibur movie, fieldwork, fossil record, giant fungus, harvard university, history of life, ice age, jung eun lee, kevin boyce, knowledge, la brea tar pits, lloyd degrane, los angeles, macroevolution, mammal fossils, michael foote, million years ago, mural, pair of calipers, paleontology, plant fossils, prehistoric life, scanning electron microscope, school, soil moisture, terrestrial ecosystems, vascular plants

For a short time in grade school, Kevin Boyce lived within two blocks of the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles, a place where ice age mammal fossils had been discovered. Above his bed hung a poster of the Yale Peabody Museum’s famous Age of Reptiles mural. But it wasn’t a boyhood fascination with prehistoric life that influenced his interest in paleontology, but rather the medieval literary world of Chaucer that Boyce discovered in college.

“I didn’t think twice about fossils between the ages of 7 and 20,” said Boyce, associate professor in geophysical sciences. Even during his undergraduate studies in literature and biology at the California Institute of Technology in the early 1990s, the deep history of life on Earth was far from his mind. (more…)

Bacterial Communication Could Affect Earth’s Climate

By Guest PostOctober 15, 2011Environmentatmospheric carbon dioxide, bacteria, bacterial communication, benjamin van mooy, british columbia, canada, carbon cycle, carbon dioxide, clayoquot sound, climate, heat trapping greenhouse gas, laura hmelo, marine plants, microscopic bacteria, ocean, particles, particles of carbon rich detritus, phytoplankton, planet, rose kantor, source of carbon, tiny marine animals, tracy mincer, university of washington, vancouver island, vessel barnes, whoi, woods hole oceanographic institution, zooplankton

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists have discovered that bacterial communication could have a significant impact on the planet’s climate.

In the ocean, bacteria coalesce on tiny particles of carbon-rich detritus sinking through the depths. WHOI marine biogeochemists Laura Hmelo, Benjamin Van Mooy, and Tracy Mincer found that these bacteria send out chemical signals to discern if other bacteria are in the neighborhood. If enough of their cohorts are nearby, then bacteria en masse commence secreting enzymes that break up the carbon-containing molecules within the particles into more digestible bits. It has been suggested that coordinated expression of enzymes is very advantageous for bacteria on sinking particles, and Hmelo and her colleagues have uncovered the first proof of this in the ocean. (more…)

Tag Archives: carbon cycle

NASA Map Sees Earth’s Trees in a New Light

English Literature Influenced Prize-Winning Paleontologist

Bacterial Communication Could Affect Earth’s Climate