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Water Evaporated from Trees Cools Global Climate

By Guest PostSeptember 17, 2011Environmentatmosphere, central park, earth, emissions of carbon dioxide, evaporated water, evaporation, george ban-weiss, global balance of energy, global climate, global warming, govindasamy bala, greenhouse gas, julia pongratz, ken caldeira, new york, vegetation, water, water vapor

Washington, DC — Scientists have long debated about the impact on global climate of water evaporated from vegetation. New research from Carnegie’s Global Ecology department concludes that evaporated water helps cool the earth as a whole, not just the local area of evaporation, demonstrating that evaporation of water from trees and lakes could have a cooling effect on the entire atmosphere. These findings, published September 14 in Environmental Research Letters, have major implications for land-use decision making.

Evaporative cooling is the process by which a local area is cooled by the energy used in the evaporation process, energy that would have otherwise heated the area’s surface. It is well known that the paving over of urban areas and the clearing of forests can contribute to local warming by decreasing local evaporative cooling, but it was not understood whether this decreased evaporation would also contribute to global warming (more…)

WHOI Study Reports Microbes Consumed Oil in Gulf Slick at Unexpected Rates

By Guest PostAugust 4, 2011Environmentbacterial microbes, benjamin van mooy, bethanie edwards, breaking down the oil slick, catherine a carmichael, christopher m reddy, deepwater horizon spill, dilution, dispersion, evaporation, gulf of mexico, gulf waters, krista longnecker, largest oil spill in history, macondo well, metabolic potential, microbes, new cells, nitrogen, nutrients, oil consumption by the microbes, oxygen levels in water samples, oxygen optode, oxygen to create carbon dioxide and energy, phosphorus, richard camilli, sensor, state of the art methods, surface oil slick, whoi, woods hole oceanographic institution

More than a year after the largest oil spill in history, perhaps the dominant lingering question about the Deepwater Horizon spill is, “What happened to the oil?” Now, in the first published study to explain the role of microbes in breaking down the oil slick on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) researchers have come up with answers that represent both surprisingly good news and a head-scratching mystery.

In research scheduled to be published in the Aug. 2 online edition of Environmental Research Letters, the WHOI team studied samples from the surface oil slick and surrounding Gulf waters. They found that bacterial microbes inside the slick degraded the oil at a rate five times faster than microbes outside the slick—accounting in large part for the disappearance of the slick some three weeks after Deepwater Horizon’s Macondo well was shut off. (more…)

Aquarius to Illuminate Links Between Salt, Climate

By Guest PostMay 12, 20111 commentEnvironment, Scienceage of aquarius, arctic ocean, Argentina, broadway musical, california, climate, climate change, concentration of salt, earth, evaporation, founder of buddhism, freshwater, gary lagerloef, gautama siddhartha, global precipitation patterns, hair, heavens, ice melt, jupiter, mars, moon, NASA, national space agency, ocean, ocean circulation, ocean surface roughness, ocean surface salinity data, rainfall, river runoff, salinity, salt seeking aquarius, satellite studies, scatterometer, tropical rainfall measuring mission, vandenberg air force base, water cycle, waves

When NASA’s salt-seeking Aquarius instrument ascends to the heavens this June, the moon above its launch site at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base won’t be in the seventh house, and Jupiter’s latest alignment with Mars will be weeks in the past, in contrast to the lyrics of the song from the popular Broadway musical “Hair.” Yet for the science team eagerly awaiting Aquarius’ ocean surface salinity data, the dawning of NASA’s “Age of Aquarius” promises revelations on how salinity is linked to Earth’s water cycle, ocean circulation and climate.

Salinity – the concentration of salt – on the ocean surface is a key missing puzzle piece in satellite studies of Earth that will improve our understanding of how the ocean and atmosphere are coupled and work in tandem to affect our climate. While satellites already measure sea surface temperature and winds, rainfall, water vapor, sea level, and ocean color, measurements of ocean surface salinity have, until quite recently, been limited to sparse data collected from ships, buoys and a small number of airborne science campaigns. (more…)

Global Model Confirms: Cool Roofs Can Offset Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Mitigate Global Warming

By Guest PostJuly 20, 20101 commentEnvironment, Scienceberkeley lab, carbon dioxide, carbon emissions, climate change, cool roof, cool the world, curb, doe, emissions, evaporation, goddard space flight center, hashem akbari, keith oleson, light-colored rooftops, model, NASA, ncar, radiation, steven chu, surabi menon, Technology, temperature, topography, urban heat

Can light-colored rooftops and roads really curb carbon emissions and combat global climate change?

The idea has been around for years, but now, a new study by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that is the first to use a global model to study the question has found that implementing cool roofs and cool pavements in cities around the world can not only help cities stay cooler, they can also cool the world, with the potential of canceling the heating effect of up to two years of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions.

(more…)

Tag Archives: evaporation

Water Evaporated from Trees Cools Global Climate

WHOI Study Reports Microbes Consumed Oil in Gulf Slick at Unexpected Rates

Aquarius to Illuminate Links Between Salt, Climate

Global Model Confirms: Cool Roofs Can Offset Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Mitigate Global Warming