but peakingin a 3-meter diameter hollow aluminum sphere Cary Forest a University of Wisconsin-Madison physics professor is stirring and heating plasmas to 500000 degrees Fahrenheit
because the polarity of the sunspots changes explains Forest an expert on cosmic dynamos and the magnetic fields they generate in planets stars and other objects.
The sun has an AC rather than a DC dynamo says Forest. Although solar max usually gives rise to numerous sunspots as well as big solar flares
and no massive storms to speak of says Forest. But the Wisconsin physicist also notes that last year
or south Forest says noting that the charged particles are tugged into the atmosphere by Earth's magnetic field creating the beautiful red green and yellow displays of light.
Every couple of hundred years there is a major solar flare Forest says and that sends a pulse capable of doing some serious stuff On earth.
when it comes in says Forest who explains that scientists think very large and potentially dangerous events occur about every one thousand years or so.
After the 1950s however humans began to use land differently such as by restoring forests and adopting agriculture that
and not consider how managed lands such as recovering forests take up carbon she said. It's not just climate--it's people.
and climate said that the researchers provide a potentially compelling argument for continued forest restoration
or preserve a forest Saleska said. This modeling approach could be used to state the complete'climate impact'of preserving large forested areas
'Work like this could help forest-preservation programs more accurately consider the climate impacts of policy measures related to forest preservation.
Uniquely the model also predicted emissions from land-use changes--such as deforestation wood harvesting and forest regrowth--that occurred from 1700 to 2005.
so people now use fertilizers instead of chopping down more forests. A decrease in global deforestation combined with enhanced vegetation growth caused by the rapid increase in carbon dioxide changed the land from a carbon source into a carbon sink.
and exchange in regional ecosystems than is recognized typically by global carbon models according to a new paper authored by researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&es).
In fact in some regions the magnitude of carbon uptake or release due to the effects of specific animal species or groups of animals--such as the pine beetles devouring forests in western North america--can rival the impact of fossil fuel
when thinking of local and regional carbon budgets said Peter Raymond a professor of ecosystem ecology at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
The above story is provided based on materials by Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Note:
#Climate change creates complicated consequences for North americas forestsclimate change affects forests across North america--in some cases permitting insect outbreaks plant diseases wildfires
and other problems--but Dartmouth researchers say warmer temperatures are also making many forests grow faster and some less susceptible to pests
which could boost forest health and acreage timber harvests carbon storage water recycling and other forest benefits in some areas.
The Dartmouth-led study which appears in the journal Ecological Monographs reviewed nearly 500 scientific papers dating to the 1950s making it the most comprehensive review to date of climate change's diverse consequences for forests across the United states Canada
and the rest of North america. Tree-killing insects and plant diseases are natural elements of healthy forest ecosystems
but climate change is rapidly altering the distribution and magnitude of forest pestilence and altering biodiversity and the ecosystem.
For example pine bark beetles have killed recently trees over more area of U s. forests than wildfires including in areas with little previous experience managing aggressive pests.
One of our prominent challenges is to adapt forest management tactics and generalize the underlying theory to cope with unprecedented changes in pest pressure the authors say.
Results show that over the last 50 years the average global air temperature has increased about 1 Ì F while the coldest winter night averages about 7 Ì F warmer.
Also pest populations in some regions may decline allowing those forests and their environmental and economic benefits to expand.
and Pulickel Ajayan the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry at Rice.
The team of scientists--comprising researchers from Harvard SEAS the National park service the USDA Forest Service the U s. Environmental protection agency
In Eastern temperate forests like those in Great smoky mountains national park the most sensitive elements of the ecosystem are the hardwood trees
In the forests of Mount rainier national park it's the lichens that suffer first; their critical load is between 2. 5 and 7. 1 kg/ha/yr
which impedes tree growth and eventually kills vast swaths of forest. Spruce beetles like their close relatives mountain pine beetles are attacking large areas of coniferous forests across the West.
While the mountain pine beetle outbreak in the Southern Rocky mountains is known the best and appears to be the worst in the historical record the lesser known spruce beetle infestation has the potential to be equally
Spruce beetles range from Alaska to Arizona and live in forests of Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir trees in Colorado.
The CU-Boulder study area included sites in the White river Routt Arapaho Roosevelt and Grand mesa national forests as well as in Rocky mountain national park.
The area of high-elevation forests affected by spruce beetles is growing in the West Hart said.
In 2012 U s. Forest Service surveys indicated that more area was under attack by spruce beetles than mountain pine beetles in the Southern Rocky mountains
Veblen said it might seem counterintuitive to some that spruce-fir subalpine forests in Colorado are larger by area than lodgepole/ponderosa pine forests.
because spruce and subalpine forests are found in more remote areas not as visible to most people he said.
#Historic trends predict future global reforestation unlikelyfeeding a growing global population while also slowing or reversing global deforestation may only be possible if agricultural yields rise and/or per capita food consumption declines over the next century according to historic global food consumption and land use trends.
To predict future global forest trends the scientists used several centuries of global land use data from the United nations Food and agriculture organization and other sources.
and reforestation are driven by three key factors: agricultural yield per capita food consumption and world population change over time.
Based on historic trends that show growing food consumption outpacing rising agricultural yields global forest cover is predicted to decline about 10%further stabilizing at roughly 22%forest cover over the next century.
Unless new technological advances increase yields or strategies to decrease food consumption are introduced a switch to global reforestation remains unlikely.
Under an alternative scenario where food production and consumption stabilize reforestation could increase global forest cover to about 35
Additionally researchers found that short-term trends in reforestation deforestation and abandoned agricultural land may play a role in understanding long-term forest trends.
The results suggest that equal effort should be directed toward finding ways to boost agricultural yield disseminate those technologies to developing countries and decrease per capita consumption thus reducing land use pressures.
or decreases in consumption will affect forest cover dynamics in time. Not every outcome was predictable to us before we had this model especially the case of the'false forest transition'.
'Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Public library of Science. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
To further investigate how bats fit into this picture the researchers surveyed more than 250 bats in remote forest ecosystems in Liberia Guinea and Cote d'ivoire in Western Africa.
Ajayan is the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry at Rice.
#Death of a spruce treeexamining a long-lived forest researchers have found that Black spruce trees which dominate the northern forests of North america succumb about five years after being weakened by environmental stresses.
The result will help researchers better understand how climate change affects the health of forests
and how forests affect the severity of climate change. The study also suggests trees might be storing more carbon than currently estimated.
and long term processes shape forests said lead author Ben Bond-Lamberty of the Department of energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Scientists have paid a lot of attention to potential climate change signals in forests--like them growing faster than expected due to an overabundance of carbon dioxide
But that signal is hard to see because of past disturbances that the forests are recovering from.
We need to understand forests in the long term but forests change slowly and researchers don't live that long.
and forests Bond-Lamberty and his international group of colleagues combined data from tree rings
and by watching how many trees died over 13 years in a northern Canadian boreal forest.
Located in the northern latitudes boreal forests have long cold winters and are full of evergreen trees.
The forest has been studied well in the past--it was the site of the NASA-led BOREAS project in the 1990s a study that provided scientists with a lot of
what they know about forests and climate. The tree ring data included tree core samples collected in three different years between 2001 and 2012 in a region called the Northern Old Black spruce site.
For that researchers had to go walking through the forest taking inventory of what was there.
Bond-Lamberty said this isn't surprising to see in a forest that hasn't seen a wildfire in a long time.
People usually say that young forests take up carbon dioxide fast and store it away while older forests are probably neutral.
Our study shows that as trees die in an old forest middle-aged trees fatten up. Thirsty Treesthis study also might cause scientists to reevaluate BOREAS results said Bond-Lamberty.
Data from BOREAS allows researchers to estimate how much carbon dioxide trees pull out of the atmosphere and store within their structures a value used in some models to predict the role of forests in a future warmer world.
But the BOREAS study period turned out to be a rotten time for the forest. What we've discovered is that the 1990s was an unusual decade said Bond-Lamberty.
Not the worst ever for growth but pretty bad. That means instead of typical growth we saw slow growth
and that raises questions about whether on average forests are socking away more carbon than we think.
Another time of thirst for the forest appears to be in the first half of the 20th century.
and you can see that in the forest s structure today said Bond-Lamberty. To determine whether these results applied more widely
To understand current forest dynamics said Bond-Lamberty we have to understand their past. Older forests contain surprises for climate science and ecosystem biology.
We need to distinguish past disturbances from today's conditions. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Data for the study comes from an experiment the researchers are running in the Duke Forest in North carolina and in the Harvard Forest in Petersham Mass.
A mix of native trees are living in open-topped temperature-controlled chambers in natural forests.
#Waviness explains why carbon nanotube forests have low stiffnessa new study has found that waviness in forests of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes dramatically reduces their stiffness answering a longstanding question surrounding the tiny structures.
Measurements of nanotube stiffness which is influenced by a property known as modulus had suggested that forests of vertically-aligned nanotubes should have a much higher stiffness than
and Ph d. students Nicholas Ginga and Wei Chen studied forests of carbon nanotubes grown atop a silicon substrate then covered the tips of the structures with another layer of silicon.
This allowed us to investigate the extreme conditions under which the deformation of nanotubes is constrained by the presence of neighboring nanotubes in the forest.
But unlike in women neither soy protein nor a common antidepressant provides relief for men according to researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical center.
and/or an antidepressant would help reduce them in men as it does in many women said Mara Vitolins Dr. P. H. professor of public health sciences at Wake Forest Baptist
The above story is provided based on materials by Wake Forest Baptist Medical center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Biochar is produced charcoal that is--typically from waste wood manure or leaves--for use as a soil additive.
#Wildlife face Armageddon as forests shrinkspecies living in rainforest fragments could be far more likely to disappear than was thought previously says an international team of scientists.
In a study spanning two decades the researchers witnessed the near-complete extinction of native small mammals on forest islands created by a large hydroelectric reservoir in Thailand.
because forests around the world are being rapidly felled and chopped up into small island-like fragments.
It's vital that we understand what happens to species in forest fragments said Antony Lynam of the Wildlife Conservation Society.
The study was motivated by a desire to understand how long species can live in forest fragments. If they persist for many decades this gives conservationists a window of time to create wildlife corridors
or restore surrounding forests to reduce the harmful effects of forest isolation. However the researchers saw native small mammals vanish with alarming speed with just a handful remaining--on average less than one individual per island--after 25 years.
and agricultural lands but will also invade disturbed forests. This tells us that the double whammy of habitat fragmentation
#Seeing the forest and the trees: Panoramic, very-high-resolution, time-lapse photography for plant and ecosystem researchever wonder what plants do
How about an entire forest or grassland? Not even the most dedicated plant researcher can be continuously present to track environmental effects on plant behavior
Martã n Ramã rez from the Argentinian Museum of Natural history and co-author of the study commented on the habitat specificity of this species confined to the oldest and extensively hollow myrtle beech trees in the humid forests in the western part of the Great
One of these is that the forests have been cleared and especially so in flat lowlands so that they have gradually become restricted to steep terrain.
Developed countries have been particularly efficient at removing forests from fertile flat areas of land. The process has been going on throughout the last centuries for example in Europe.
The better the economy the better the political organisation and the more orderly societal conditions a country has the more efficient the population has been at restricting forests to steep areas reflecting their lower utility and value.
which have started also to clear forests to make room for agriculture and urban development. In thinly populated areas such as parts of Amazon Siberia and Congo there are still large continuous stretches of unspoiled forests.
As populations grow and human impacts increase however development will increasingly affect even these relatively isolated areas.
just as forests are naturally regrowing in areas that have been abandoned as people move to the cities.
These dynamics occur in steep areas in particular given modern efficient land use practices cannot easily be implemented here strengthening the development leading towards future forests becoming concentrated on slopes.
Less biodiversitythis development gives rise to concern about the biodiversity of the forests of the future according to Brody Sandel who is one of the researchers responsible for the study.
The remaining forests on slopes are divided typically into smaller areas that are not continuous. For example fragmentation reduces the availability of interior forest habitat that is preferred by many bird species. There are also a number of large predators such as big cats like the tiger
which require extensive areas of continuous forest to be able to get enough food or avoid human persecution explains Brody Sandel.
In addition small and fragmented forests are subject to more wind impact more intense sunlight on the forest floor and more disturbance.
This results in a hotter and drier microclimate and will have an impact on species composition in the forests of the future promoting species that do not require a stable dense forest environment.
On the other hand species in steep mountainous areas can better track their preferred climate as it becomes warmer.
Hence considering future climate change it's fortunate that forests will especially occur on steep terrain in the future.
It's thus a blessing in disguise that the general loss of forests has less effect on slopes adds Professor Jens-Christian Svenning Aarhus University who is spearheading the research project.
His paper concludes that for now it makes more sense to enable plants to soak up carbon dioxide through reforestation
and to redouble efforts to protect forests rather than producing and promoting biofuels. Corn ethanol production of 14 billion gallons supplied 4. 4 percent of total U s. transportation liquid fuel use in 2011.
Overuse injuries in young people are said definitely preventable Dr. David Martin an orthopedic surgeon at Wake Forest Baptist Medical center.
and many more single-sport athletes said Martin who is director of sports medicine for Wake Forest University athletics and team physician for the Winston-salem Dash minor-league baseball team.
Playing different sports on the other hand is good for young people on multiple levels said Dr. Daryl Rosenbaum who specializes in family medicine and sports medicine at Wake Forest Baptist.
That view is echoed by Dr. Michael Freehill a Wake Forest Baptist orthopedic surgeon who specializes in shoulder injuries and assists as team physician for the Winston-salem Dash.
The above story is provided based on materials by Wake Forest Baptist Medical center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
Now a team from Cambridge university in England has devised a simple technique to increase the density of nanotube forests grown on conductive supports about five times over previous methods.
High-density forests are necessary for certain applications of carbon nanotubes like electronic interconnects and thermal interface materials he says.
When the interaction of metals was analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy it revealed the creation of a more supportive substrate for the forests to root in.
In microelectronics this approach to growing high-density carbon nanotube forests on conductors can potentially replace
In the future more robust carbon nanotube forests may also help improve thermal interface materials battery electrodes and supercapacitors.
Previously wood had to be dried coated with carbon and put under a high vacuum to be studied at the nanolevel.
When wood is injured such as by an insect or is being dried like we do dried with kiln lumber the torus
In wood fallen to the forest floor it controls the rate that fungi advance through the wood cells to cause decay
In wood products the sealed wood fiber cells are what make some wood species so difficult to dry;
and fractionation difficult--the first step in extracting natural chemicals from wood to make products ranging from medicinal polymers to sugars that are the basis for bioenergy systems.
and new research shows that adding it to the soil helps reverse the decades-long decline of forests ailing from the effects of acid rain.
The paper published Sept. 19 in the journal Environmental science and Technology (EST) Letters and led by John Battles professor of forest ecology at the University of California Berkeley also presents strong evidence that acid rain
The paper reports on 15 years of data from an ongoing field experiment in the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New hampshire led by study co-author Charles Driscoll Jr. professor of environmental systems engineering
The research site managed by the U s. Forest Service was targeted because of the declining growth rates and unexpected death of trees in the area.
Previous measurements of the forest soil showed a 50 percent depletion of calcium. Acid rain forms when sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides--gases produced from the burning of fossil fuels--react with water molecules in the air.
Researchers monitored the forest over the next 15 years comparing the treatment area with an adjacent watershed that had the same characteristics
The treatment increased the forest's resilience to major disturbances said Battles. The trees in the calcium-treated watershed were able to recover faster from a severe ice storm that hit the region in 1998.
This study has important implications that go well beyond the forests of the northeastern United states said Dave Schindler a professor of ecology at the University of Alberta in Canada who was not part of this research.
Both Schindler and Battles noted that the high cost of adding calcium to the soil would likely limit its use to targeted watersheds rather than as a treatment for vast areas of affected forests Prevention is always preferable
and with our study's clear evidence that acid rain is hurting forests other countries will hopefully be motivated to intervene sooner by implementing air pollution standards to reduce emissions said Battles.
and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced today that 705588 carbon credits are certified for sale from the Makira Forest REDD+Project.
The Makira REDD+(Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus conservation) Project is the first sale of government-owned government-led REDD+credits in Africa.
REDD+is an international framework that assigns a financial value to the carbon stored in forests offering compensation to developing countries for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation while investing in low-carbon paths
REDD+additionally includes the role of conservation sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.
In addition Makira's forests serve as a zone of watershed protection providing clean water to over 250000 people in the surrounding landscape.
According to the Secretaire General of the Ministry of Environment and Forests of the Republic of Madagascar Pierre Manganirina Randrianarisoa Green growth is the fruit of a green economy within the context of sustainable development realized through the implementation of an appropriate
Thus the sale of carbon stored in the protected forests of Makira Natural Park provides a significant financial opportunity for Madagascar.
Scientists estimate that up to 17 percent of annual carbon emissions--more that the entire U s. generates each year--are caused by destruction of forests especially in tropical areas.
In Madagascar burning for agricultural land is leading to 100000 hectares (386 square miles) of forest being lost each year.
#Heavily logged forests still valuable for tropical wildlifenew research has found rainforests that have been logged several times continue to hold substantial value for biodiversity
if any value of heavily logged forests for conservation. The research which monitored bats as an indicator for environmental change on Borneo is the first of its kind to have wildlife in forests logged more than two times.
The findings are particularly important because across the tropics forest that has been harvested intensively is targeted frequently for conversion to agriculture
and is perceived to hold little value for timber carbon or biodiversity. Dr Struebig Lecturer in Biological Conservation from DICE explains:'
'Only by viewing forest sites along a gradient of logging disturbance ranging from pristine to heavily degraded were the team able to detect a gradual decline of some key bat species. The research confirmed the most vulnerable bats were those that tend to live in the cavities of old growth trees.
By linking bat captures with vegetation measurements from nearby plots the researchers were able to reveal how these animals declined as successive rounds of logging took their toll on forest structure and crucially the availability of tree cavities.
Although logging damage was clearly detrimental to some of the species studied the findings also offer some hope for forest restoration efforts.'
'Across the tropics there is increasing investment to restore the timber and wildlife in logged rainforests.'
This study is the first field data to be published from the Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems Project in Sabah Malaysia--a new landscape experiment
which combines the efforts of more than 100 researchers around the world to investigate the impacts of logging deforestation and forest fragmentation in the natural world.
For example the forest industry only contributed a few per cent to GDP. The results of the study raise the question:
#Tropical forest carbon absorption may hinge on an odd couplea unique housing arrangement between a specific group of tree species
and a carbo-loading bacteria may determine how well tropical forests can absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere according to a Princeton university-based study.
The findings suggest that the role of tropical forests in offsetting the atmospheric buildup of carbon from fossil fuels depends on tree diversity particularly in forests recovering from exploitation.
Tropical forests thrive on natural nitrogen fertilizer pumped into the soil by trees in the legume family a diverse group that includes beans
The researchers studied second-growth forests in Panama that had been used for agriculture five to 300 years ago The presence of legume trees ensured rapid forest growth in the first 12 years of recovery and thus a substantial
Tracts of land that were pasture only 12 years before had accumulated already as much as 40 percent of the carbon found in fully mature forests.
These fledgling woodlands had the capacity to store 50 metric tons of carbon per hectare (2. 47 acres)
Scientists have recently put numbers on how much carbon forests as a whole absorb with a recent paper suggesting that the world's forests took up 2. 4 quadrillion tons of carbon from 1990 to 2007.
Tropical forests are a huge carbon sink. If trees could just grow and store carbon you could have a rapid sink
but if they don't have enough nitrogen they don't take up carbon said Hedin adding that nitrogen-fixing trees are uncommon in temperate forests such as those in most of North america and Europe.
and that the level of biodiversity in a tropical forest may determine the size of the carbon sink.
or nitrogen fixers are especially important for forests recovering from agricultural use logging fire or other human activities The researchers studied 16 forest plots that were formerly pasture
and are maintained by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). Forest degradation however comes with a loss of biodiversity that can affect nitrogen fixers too
If the numbers and diversity of nitrogen fixers plummet then the health of the surrounding forest would likely be affected for a very long time.
and they're really important for the function of these forests but we do not know enough about how this valuable group of trees influences forests.
While some species may thrive on disturbance others are in older forests where they may be sensitive to human activities.
The researchers found that the nine legume species they studied did not contribute nitrogen to surrounding trees at the same time.
Certain species were more active in the youngest forests others in middle-aged forests and still other species went into action mainly in 300-year-old tracts though not nearly to the same extent as legumes in younger plots.
The researchers found that individual trees reduced their fixation as nitrogen accumulated in soils with the number of legumes actively fixing nitrogen dropping from 71 to 23 percent between 12-and 80-year-old forests.
In that way the diversity of species that are present in the forest is really critical
because it ensures that there can be fixation at all different time periods of forest recovery whenever it's necessary Batterman said.
Computer models that calculate the global balance of atmospheric carbon dioxide also must factor in sinks that offset carbon such as tropical forests.
And if forests take up carbon differently depending on the abundance and diversity of legumes models should reflect that variation she said.
Dylan Craven a Yale university doctoral candidate in forestry and environmental studies; and Jefferson Hall an STRI staff scientist and leader of the institute's Agua Salud Project that maintains
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