Climate Change Affects Geographical Range of Plants
Mats Töpel is part of the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at the University of Gothenburg. (University of Gothenburg)
Researches at the University of Gothenburg have shown how climate change many million years ago has influenced the geographical range of plants by modelling climate preferences for extinct species. The method can also be used to predict what effects climate change of today and tomorrow will have on future distributions of plants and animals.
The researcher Mats Töpel at the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, has studied how climate change has influenced the development of a group of plants in the genus Potentilla, commonly known as cinquefoils.
His research shows that this group of plants developed during a period of climate change in western North America around 25 million years ago, which led to summer drought in California and the largest desert in North America, the Great Basin.
The small plant Ivesia bailey is adapted to living in extremely dry conditions, by seeking shade on north-facing rocks in the Nevada Desert. This lifestyle is believed to have evolved in the genus Potentilla around 20 million years ago.
Models of the climate
“By creating models of the climate in which the group probably evolved, I have shown that there was a suitable climate in the eastern part of the Great Basin approximately 25 million years ago, and that the geographical range of these plants expanded to the west at the same time as new species evolved and adapted to different types of environments. (more…)
Team Develops Non-Toxic Oil Recovery Agent
A team of chemists led by Dr. George John, Associate Professor at The City College of New York (CCNY), have developed a non-toxic, recyclable agent that can solidify oil on salt water so that it can be scooped up like the fat that forms on the top of a pot of chilled chicken soup. The agent could potentially be used to recover oil lost in the British Petroleum (BP) spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Professor John said.
In the laboratory, Professor John and colleagues added a sugar compound mixed in alcohol to diesel oil floating on top of a saline solution. “Within five minutes, the oil had gelled into a substance thick enough to be scooped up,” he said. Then the team separated 80 percent of the oil from the gel using a vacuum distillation process.
The gelling agent developed by his team is environmentally benign. It uses a sugar-based molecule that can be obtained from renewable sources and is biodegradable. In addition, only a relatively small amount of the agent – five percent of the volume of the oil being recovered – is required for the process, which handles a range of oil from crude to vegetable oil, to work. (more…)
The North Pacific, a Global Backup Generator for Past Climate Change
The left panel shows the glacial conveyor belt flow 21,000 years ago. The right panel shows a reorganized conveyor belt flow 17,500-15,000 years ago with deep-water sinking in the North Pacific. (IPRC/SOEST)
Toward the end of the last ice age, a major reorganization took place in the current system of the North Pacific with far-reaching implications for climate, according to a new study published in the July 9, 2010, issue of Science by an international team of scientists from Japan, Hawaii, and Belgium.
Earth’s climate is regulated largely by the world ocean’s density-driven circulation, which brings warm surface water to the polar regions and transports cold water away from there at depth. As poleward flowing salty waters cool in the North Atlantic, they become so heavy that they sink. This sinking acts as a pump for the ocean’s conveyor belt circulation.
A well-established fact by now is that there have been times in the past when the North Atlantic branch of the conveyor belt circulation was shut down by melting ice sheets, which released so much fresh glacial meltwater that the sinking of cold water in the Nordic Seas stopped and the Northern Hemisphere was plunged into a deep freeze. The last time such a collapse took place was toward the end of the last ice age, from around 17,500 to 15,000 years ago, the first stage of what scientists call the Mystery Interval. (more…)
New Green, Bio-Based Process for Producing Fuel Additive
Thomas Bobik, professor of biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology, along with David Gogerty, a doctoral student, invented a process for manufacturing isobutene (isobutylene) by identifying a new, natural enzyme that produces the fuel organically.
A new green, bio-based method for producing a much-used fuel additive and industrial chemical that is currently made from petroleum products has been developed by an Iowa State University researcher.
Thomas Bobik, professor of biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology, invented a process for manufacturing isobutene (isobutylene) by identifying a new, natural enzyme that produces the fuel organically.
Bobik, along with David Gogerty, a doctoral student working with him on the project, believe that once more research is completed, there could be huge benefits to the biofuels industry.
“I would emphasize that we are very early on in the process,” said Bobik. “But isobutene has some special properties that could have a big impact.”
Bobik’s enzyme makes it possible to convert the glucose found naturally in plants to make isobutene. The enzyme is found naturally in about half of all organisms in the world.
While patent applications proceed, Bobik will not disclose the specific enzyme. (more…)
Arctic Ice at Low Point Compared to Recent Geologic History
by Pam Frost Gorder
Leonid Polyak
Less ice covers the Arctic today than at any time in recent geologic history.
That’s the conclusion of an international group of researchers, who have compiled the first comprehensive history of Arctic ice.
For decades, scientists have strived to collect sediment cores from the difficult-to-access Arctic Ocean floor, to discover what the Arctic was like in the past. Their most recent goal: to bring a long-term perspective to the ice loss we see today.
Now, in an upcoming issue of Quarternary Science Reviews, a team led by Ohio State University has re-examined the data from past and ongoing studies — nearly 300 in all — and combined them to form a big-picture view of the pole’s climate history stretching back millions of years.
“The ice loss that we see today — the ice loss that started in the early 20th Century and sped up during the last 30 years — appears to be unmatched over at least the last few thousand years,” said Leonid Polyak, a research scientist at Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University. Polyak is lead author of the paper and a preceding report that he and his coauthors prepared for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. (more…)
DHS Creates Broad-Reaching Mechanism to Identify Technology Gaps
The fire service is one of the four disciplines represented by the First Responder Working Group, which identifies technology needs in the first responder community. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard.
First responders need and deserve the best tools and practices available to help save lives and protect property. The responsibility of identifying the gaps in existing technology – and working to fill those gaps – belongs to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T). DHS S&T knows that first responders need to be part of the process. As a result, DHS has created a new First Responder Integrated Product Team (IPT) specifically for first responder needs. The First Responder IPT was established to address the highest priority research, development, test, and evaluation needs of the nation’s first responders, using a process driven by the first responder community.
DHS S&T already has IPTs in place to identify the research priorities of DHS components, such as the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. IPTs identify, prioritize, and work to fill capability gaps. In short, they ask what their stakeholders need in order to perform their jobs more safely and effectively. IPTs also work with stakeholders to rank which of those needs is most important.
DHS has collaborated with first responders through programs such as TechSolutions, a component of the First Responder Technologies program that funds the development of prototypes to bridge capability gaps identified by first responders. While these individual efforts have reaped rewards, DHS S&T wanted to have broader and more direct involvement with the first responder community – through tribal, state, local, and territorial responders. The new First Responder IPT does exactly that. (more…)
Ancient Leaves Help Researchers Understand Future Climate
Kevin Mueller: Working to help develop better climate models.
Potential climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide might be better understood by examining fossil plant remains from millions of years ago, according to biogeochemists. The types of carbon within the leaves can serve as a window into past temperatures and environmental conditions.
“Carbon isotopes are really important for understanding the carbon cycle of the past, and we care about the carbon cycle of the past because it gives us clues about future climate change,” said Aaron Diefendorf, graduate student in geosciences at Penn State.
Carbon naturally occurs in two non-radioactive isotopes — different forms of the same element — carbon 12 and carbon 13. Plants absorb carbon from the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. The ratio of carbon 12 to carbon 13 within a plant mirrors the ratio in the atmosphere, which varies with changes in the carbon cycle — the cycling of the element carbon through plants and animals, the ocean, the atmosphere and Earth’s crust.
Clues about how the environment responded to global warming events millions of years ago can be found in carbon isotope ratios from ancient fossil leaves, sediments and pollen. However, environmental conditions also impact leaf carbon isotope ratios, a complexity that Diefendorf and Kevin Mueller, graduate student in ecology, Penn State, set out to resolve with their study. (more…)
Reducing Fossil Energy Use on the Farm
Fossil energy use was compared among three different crop rotation systems in a field experiment conducted between 2003 and 2008 in Boone Co., Iowa. (David N. Sundberg)
Conventional agriculture production relies heavily on fossil fuels, particularly in its ability to provide energy at a low cost. However, the uncertain future of fossil fuel availability and prices point to need to explore energy efficiencies in other cropping systems.
Most of the U.S. Corn Belt relies on a two-year rotation of corn and soybean with heavy inputs of fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides derived from fossil fuels to achieve high yields keep costs low. Matt Liebman, Michael Cruse, and their colleagues at Iowa State University conducted a six-year study to compare energy use of a conventionally managed corn and soybean system with two low input cropping systems that use more diverse crops and manure applications, but also use less fertilizer and herbicides. The results were published in the May/June 2010 edition of Agronomy Journal, published by the American Society of Agronomy.
The two input systems consisted of a three-year rotation of corn-soybean/small grain/red clover and a four-year rotation of corn-soybean-small grain/alfalfa-alfalfa. Between 2003 and 2008, nitrogen fertilizer inputs in the 3-year rotation decreased 66% and decreased 78% in the 4-year rotation. Herbicide use decreased 80% in the three-year rotation and 85% in the four-year rotation. Despite the energy input reduction, corn and soybean yields matched or exceeded the conventional system yields. (more…)
Through the Looking Glass: Scientists Peer Back at a Warm, Sub-Tropical Antarctica
Dawn patrol: ice observer Diego Mello and first mate Steve Bradley on the lookout for icebergs. (John Beck, IODP/TAMU)
Researchers brave rough seas and dodge icebergs to retrieve sediment cores that tell tales of early climates
New results from a research expedition in Antarctic waters may provide critical clues to understanding one of the most dramatic periods of climate change in Earth’s history.
Some 53 million years ago, Antarctica was a warm, sub-tropical environment. During this same period, known as the “greenhouse” or “hothouse” world, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels exceeded those of today by ten times.
Then suddenly, Antarctica’s lush environment transitioned into its modern icy realm.
Newly acquired climate records tell a tale of this long-ago time. The records were recovered from Antarctica, preserved in sediment cores retrieved during the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Wilkes Land Glacial History Expedition from Jan. 4 - March 8, 2010. (more…)
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