and Other Land Usesoil carbon sequestration--One of the recommendations coming out of this and previous reports is that carbon be sequestered through land management changes Rice said of practices that hold carbon in the soil.
Through reduced tillage in farming--no-till being the prime example --and systems using cover crops
It turns out that (carbon sequestration) has multiple benefits. If you increase the carbon content you improve the quality of the soil.
It makes it more productive less prone to erosion and the organic matter helps hold water
and air stabilizing soil during heavy rains storing carbon and replenishing soil nutrients. In this latest study the researchers found that total global production of shade grown coffee has increased
and moisture on the site and stores carbon said Carolyn Copenheaver an associate professor of forest ecology In virginia Tech's College of Natural resources and Environment.
#Nutrient-rich forests absorb more carbonthe ability of forests to sequester carbon from the atmosphere depends on nutrients available in the forest soils shows new research from an international team of researchers including IIASA.
The study published in the journal Nature Climate Change showed that forests growing in fertile soils with ample nutrients are able to sequester about 30%of the carbon that they take up during photosynthesis. In contrast forests growing in nutrient-poor
soils may retain only 6%of that carbon. The rest is returned to the atmosphere as respiration.
-poor forests spend a lot of energy--carbon--through mechanisms to acquire nutrients from the soil whereas nutrient-rich forests can use that carbon to enhance biomass production.
Until now scientific models to predict forest carbon sequestration on a global scale had considered only the amount of nitrogen in the soil
and did not take into account other constraints such as phosphorus or the ph of the soil which is related to the availability of nutrients.
Tropical rainforests had the poorest nutrient availability and the lowest efficiency for carbon sequestration the researchers found.
The researchers believe that the difference in efficiency of carbon absorption could be due to several factors.
and thus retains more carbon. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by International Institute for Applied Systems analysis.
what we call the carbon budget he says. The world's scientists have calculated a carbon budget for the planet which tells us how much CO2 we can put into the atmosphere before we reach concentrations above which we will unacceptably warm the planet.
If we continue to emit greenhouse gases at current rates we risk overshooting the carbon budget with dire consequences.
We understand now if we do not want to overshoot we need to bring emissions down to basically zero over the next 50-60 years he said.
Carbon neutralthe Stanford team has begun looking for ways to create other fuels and improve the overall efficiency of the process.
For the process to be carbon neutral scientists will have to find a new way to make carbon monoxide from renewable energy instead of fossil fuel the primary source today.
#Black carbon is ancient by the time it reaches seafloora fraction of the carbon that finds its way into Earth's oceans--the black soot
and charcoal residue of fires--stays there for thousands for years and a new first-of-its-kind analysis shows how some black carbon breaks away
and hitches a ride to the ocean floor on passing particles. The study by scientists from Rice university the University of California Irvine and the University of South carolina offers the first detailed analysis of how black carbon gets into deep ocean sediments as well as an accounting of the types
and amounts of black carbon found in those sediments. Our previous work showed that the black carbon in ocean sediments is said ancient lead investigator Ellen Druffel the Fred Kavli Professor of Earth System Science at UC Irvine.
It's anywhere from 2000 to 5500 years older than the organic carbon in the same sediments.
That means that it either stays dissolved in the water for a long time before it's deposited
or it stays trapped somewhere else--like the soil--for thousands of years before it enters the ocean.
This new study offers the most complete picture yet of how black carbon finds its way into deep ocean sediments.
The environmental fate of black carbon is understood not well said study co-author Caroline Masiello a Rice biogeochemist who began studying black carbon with Druffel in the 1990s.
Virtually all black carbon results from combustion. Soot the airborne version of black carbon is a key element of smoke.
Charcoal is another form of black carbon. Each form is produced naturally by wildfires as well by industry and other human activities.
Druffel and colleagues said their study did not aim to answer questions about how much black carbon people are producing today
or how human-produced black carbon is affecting global climate. Our aim was to show how the black carbon cycle likely works in the ocean Druffel said.
We are looking for the baseline which is an important thing for others to have to do future studies about anthropogenic change.
Scientific interest in black carbon is high. On the one hand a comprehensive 2013 study found that soot is a far more important player in global climate than was believed previously.
On the other there is a growing global movement among gardeners farmers and others to use another form of black carbon--biochar--to both boost crop yields and to counter greenhouse emissions by locking
carbon in soil for centuries. Sediment traps like this one being deployed from the research vessel New Horizon were used to sample black carbon in particles that sank to the bottom of the Northeast Pacific.
Credit: E. Druffel/UC Irvinewhether you come at this from the point of view of reducing soot in the atmosphere
or of using biochar to counter global warming it's important to have a better understanding of where black carbon goes how it gets there
and types of black carbon found in seafloor sediments. This helps us narrow down the role of the ocean as a sink for both soot and charcoal.
Black carbon's journey to the bottom of the ocean begins when the material enters the water.
The researchers used radiocarbon dating and other techniques to examine the black carbon that was buried in seafloor sediments in the Northeast Pacific that dated to about 20000 years ago.
and amounts of black carbon that were dissolved in seawater trapped in sediments and contained in oceangoing particles tiny specs of matter that gradually sink to the seafloor.
We found that black carbon is taken up by particles that are produced in the water column said Coppola.
Coppola said black carbon tends to stay dissolved in seawater and only occasionally gets snagged by a passing marine particle.
I'm surprised that given how much black carbon is produced most of it remains in the ocean for thousands of years Coppola said.
and materials industries to make thin films of silicon carbon fibers and other materials. This new method will allow us to exploit the properties of molybdenum diselenide in a number of applications said study leader Pulickel Ajayan chair of Rice's Department of Materials Science and Nanoengineering.
because they have an atomic structure similar to graphene the pure carbon wonder materials that attracted the 2010 Nobel prize in physics.
The tag they used was a positron-emitting isotope of carbon carbon-11 incorporated into carbon dioxide.
When they administered this labeled CO2 to plant leaves the plants incorporated the radioactive carbon into sugars via photosynthesis. The scientists then tracked the labeled sugars throughout the plant using detectors placed along the plant stem.
Only a few labs in the world have the capability using the carbon-11 radioisotope to do the type of experiment that we did to see rapid changes in carbon allocation immediately following a treatment such as shoot tip removal Babst said.
The methodology assigns financial value to ecosystem services such as the provision of clean water carbon storage
At that time carbon dioxide-enriched air was released in the fields creating an elevated level of atmospheric carbon at the test plots similar to
#A balanced carbon footprint for the Amazon Riverconsidered until now a source of greenhouse gas emissions capturing the CO2 fixed by the tropical forest through the soils of the watershed to release it into the atmosphere the Amazon river actually has balanced a carbon footprint.
and EPOC laboratories (OASU CNRS Universitã Bordeaux 1) and published in the journal Nature changes the order for global carbon footprints.
Until now researchers thought that rivers were supplied with carbon by trees and other land plants through the soils of the watershed.
This carbon was transformed then into CO2 and released by outgassing into the atmosphere. Watercourses and in particular the giant Amazon were considered
All emissions covered by the wetlandsthe Amazon emits some 200000 tons of carbon per year through outgassing.
half of this carbon in the form of dissolved CO2 and biodegradable organic matter is transferred directly to the river.
This quantity of CO2 is equivalent to the 200000 tons of carbon outgassed annually. Therefore the carbon footprint of the river system in the central Amazon region is close to equilibrium:
its waters release the same quantity of carbon into the atmosphere as is fixed by its vegetation.
Nevertheless this study highlights the very heavy contribution of inland waters to CO2 emissions. It sheds light on the need to consider the specific properties of wetlands in global carbon footprints.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Institut de Recherche pour le DÃ veloppement (IRD.
and used in other applications such as adhesives insolation carbon fibres and paint additives. Genetic modificationthe genetic modification strategy employed in this study could also be used on other plants like grasses to be used as a new kind of fuel to replace petroleum.
Trees and plants have enormous potential to contribute carbon to our society. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of British columbia.
Natural processes are working hard to keep the carbon cycle in balance by absorbing about half of our carbon emissions limiting the extent of climate change.
In July 2014 NASA will launch the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) to study the fate of carbon dioxide worldwide.
Forests remove carbon from the air during photosynthesis and store it in wood and roots making these forests
what scientists call carbon sinks. But droughts and wildfires can turn forests into carbon sources releasing the stored carbon back into the atmosphere.
We don't know when and how often forests cross the line from sink to source.
and other conditions the OCO-2 data will allow modelers to better locate carbon sources
so that organizations and individuals throughout the world can make better-informed decisions about carbon. For more information about OCO-2 visit:
Amazonian grasses sometimes called macrophytes convert atmospheric carbon to plant biomass which is processed then by aquatic microorganisms upon decomposition.
when water levels are low sequestering some carbon and then die when the floods arrive releasing the carbon into the aquatic system said Thiago Silva an assistant professor of geography at SãO Paulo State university in Rio Claro Brazil.
They are followed by aquatic grasses that need to grow extremely fast to surpass the rising floods
Although most of the macrophyte carbon is released back to the atmosphere in the same form that it is assimilated carbon dioxide some of it is exported actually to the ocean as dissolved carbon
In a comprehensive analysis of soil collected from 11 distinct U s. regions from Hawaii to northern Alaska researchers found that the extent to which deforestation disturbs underground microbial communities that regulate the loss of carbon into the atmosphere depends almost exclusively on the texture of the soil.
A serious consequence of deforestation is extensive loss of carbon from the soil a process regulated by subterranean microbial diversity.
This has the potential to inform land management practices concerned with the conservation of biodiversity and the sequestration of carbon in the soil.
and to maintain carbon storage capacity the new study shows that sustainable management of wood resources can achieve both goals while also reducing fossil fuel burning.
Reductions in fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions from construction will become increasingly critical as demand for new buildings bridges
Comparison with ground-based measurements from carbon flux towers and yield statistics confirmed the results.
That's where missions with better resolution could help such as NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2--a mission planned for launch in July 2014 that will also measure solar-induced fluorescence.
and other human influences in the agricultural areas we're not going to correctly estimate the amount of carbon taken up by vegetation particularly corn Joiner said.
They found it to be much better than nanofluids that contain higher amounts of oxide nitride or carbide ceramics metals semiconductors carbon nanotubes and other composite materials.
at Viakable Technology and Research center in Monterrey Mexico and a research collaborator at Carbon Sponge Solutions in Houston.
This lag follows from the effect of the harvest residue removals on the carbon balance of forests especially soil (indirect land-use-related emissions.
and the carbon isotopes of leaf wax a marker for plant varieties (grasses indicate dry conditions).
carbon isotopes from plant leaf wax. Leaves are covered with a carbon-based wax that protects them from losing too much water to evaporation.
Different plants have different carbon isotopes in their leaf wax. Tropical grasses which are adapted for dryer climates tend to have the C-13 isotope.
Trees which thrive in wetter environs use the C-12 isotope. The ratio of those two isotopes in the sediment cores is an indicator of the relative abundance of grass versus trees.
#Forests crucial to green growththe value of forests and tree-based ecosystems extends far beyond carbon sequestration;
Not only do they store carbon they support biodiversity regulate water flows and reduce soil erosion. Nearly 1. 6 billion people worldwide depend on forests as a source of food medicines timber and fuel.
and ways to increase carbon sequestration and mitigate climate change said Sonny Ramaswamy director of USDA's National Institute of Food
Benefits included increased carbon and nitrogen in soils erosion prevention more mycorrhizal colonization--beneficial soil fungus that helps plants absorb nutrients--and weed suppression.
and soil-carbon benefits accrue slowly over decades she said. By integrating a suite of ecosystem services into a unified analytical framework we highlighted the potential for cover crops to influence a wide array of ecosystem services.
#Amazon inhales more carbon than it emits, NASA findsa new NASA-led study seven years in the making has confirmed that natural forests in the Amazon remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than they emit
This finding resolves a longstanding debate about a key component of the overall carbon balance of the Amazon basin.
The Amazon's carbon balance is a matter of life and death: living trees take carbon dioxide out of the air as they grow
He found that each year dead Amazonian trees emit an estimated 1. 9 billion tons (1. 7 billion metric tons) of carbon to the atmosphere.
To compare this with Amazon carbon absorption the researchers used censuses of forest growth and different modeling scenarios that accounted for uncertainties.
In every scenario carbon absorption by living trees outweighed emissions from the dead ones indicating that the prevailing effect in natural forests of the Amazon is absorption.
Until now scientists had only been able to estimate the Amazon's carbon balance from limited observations in small forest areas called plots.
On these plots the forest removes more carbon than it emits but the scientific community has been vigorously debating how well the plots represent all the natural processes in the huge Amazon region.
In the years since then he worked with 21 coauthors in five nations to measure the carbon impacts of tree deaths in the Amazon from all natural causes--from large-area blowdowns to single trees that died of old age.
We found that large natural disturbances--the sort not captured by plots--have only a tiny effect on carbon cycling throughout the Amazon said Sassan Saatchi of JPL also a co-author.
#Reindeer grazing may counteract effects of climate warming on tundra carbon sinklocal reindeer grazing history is an important determinant in the response of an ecosystem's carbon sink to climate warming say researchers at the Arctic
The consequences of global climate warming on ecosystem carbon sink in tundra are of great interest
because carbon that is currently stored in tundra soils may be released to the atmosphere in a warmer climate.
Carbon balances showed that under the current climate lightly grazed dwarf-shrub-dominated tundra were a stronger carbon sink than heavily grazed graminoid-dominated tundra.
However warming decreased the carbon sink in lightly grazed tundra but had no effect in heavily grazed tundra.
The main reason for this grazer-induced difference was that in heavily grazed tundra graminoids with rapid growth rates were able to increase their photosynthesis and carbon fixation under increased temperatures.
Increased carbon fixation in heavily grazed tundra compensated the warming-induced increase in the carbon dioxide release from the ecosystem.
The significance of reindeer grazing history to tundra carbon balances has not been studied previously. The present results may modify climate models that predict the effects of global warming on global carbon cycles.
The study shows that it is critical to know the grazing history before the responses of tundra carbon balances to climate warming can be understood.
This has positive results for the protective effect as well as for wood production and carbon storage.
and are critically important to global carbon and energy cycles and yet do not attract the interest levels that tropical rainforests do.
Whilst it is assumed generally that'more trees are better'in tropical rainforest this is not necessarily the case for tropical grassy ecosystems and so the outcomes of global carbon and conservation initiatives
They also store about 15%of the world's carbon. Tropical grassy ecosystems are associated with savannas
#Predation on invertebrates by woodland salamanders increases carbon capturewoodland salamanders perform a vital ecological service in American forests by helping to mitigate the impacts of global warming.
Woodland salamanders facilitate the capture of this carbon before it is released by feeding on invertebrates (beetles earthworms snails ants etc.
that would otherwise release carbon through consumption of fallen leaves and other forest debris. Woodland salamanders are the most common vertebrate species in American forests;
consequently these small seldom-seen animals may play a significant role in regulating the capture of carbon from leaf litter in forest soils.
and carbon are captured at the litter-soil interface. The objective of the study was to investigate the role of salamanders in regulating invertebrate abundances
and agricultural land use because it increases the storage of carbon and may also enhance agricultural productivity.
Furthermore the same amount of carbon isotope (14c) in a given sample can quite easily result in different dating results
The researchers analysed the isotopic ratios of carbon nitrogen and sulphur in adult human bone collagen and compared these with ratios in ancient and modern plants and animals from the location
#Amazons canopy a patchwork quilt of chemicals generated by plantsin many ways plants act as chemical factories using energy from sunlight to produce carbon-based energy
Carbon emission will be higher in second half of centuryspanish forest ecosystems will quite probably emit high quantities of carbon dioxide in the second half of the 21st century.
Consequently woodlands that now drain carbon will become carbon producers because plant respiration (a process in
and the decomposition of death organic matter will exceed photosynthesis processes (carbon sequestration and oxygen release).
For now the carbon footprint of cutting down forests to make way for palm plantations dwarfs the greenhouse gases coming from the wastewater lagoons.
Taylor whose research typically focuses on carbon cycling in old-growth tropical forests was inspired to do the analysis by undergraduate researcher Hana Fancher who also is a co-author of the journal article.
This produces vapors with relatively large molecules containing many hydrogen atoms as well as approximately the same number of oxygen as carbon atoms.
The new oxygen breaks off a hydrogen from a neighboring carbon to keep for itself
and therefore how much carbon they are keeping out of the atmosphere--that is as long as scientists know how to interpret the measurements of forest growth.
The forest wasn't storing that much more carbon; taller trees were growing a few meters to the side
These coatings included significant amounts of soil organic carbon microbes and pathogens. After the coatings dried they were incorporated into the topsoil layer of the alluvial soils using tillage equipment. â#oebecause the flooding occurred during the non-growing season for corn
New study narrows possibilities for gaining control of nanotube typea single-walled carbon nanotube grows from the round cap down so it's logical to think the cap's formation determines
A nanotube is an atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms arranged in hexagons and rolled into a tube.
#New pomegranate-inspired design solves problems for lithium-ion batteriesan electrode designed like a pomegranate--with silicon nanoparticles clustered like seeds in a tough carbon rind--overcomes several remaining
and encasing the nanoparticles in carbon yolk shells that give them room to swell and shrink during charging.
and coated each cluster with a second thicker layer of carbon. These carbon rinds hold the pomegranate clusters together
and provide a sturdy highway for electrical currents. And since each pomegranate cluster has just one-tenth the surface area of the individual particles inside it a much smaller area is exposed to the electrolyte thereby reducing the amount of gunk that forms to a manageable level.
#Carbon nanotube fibers outperform copper in carrying electrical currenton a pound-per-pound basis carbon nanotube-based fibers invented at Rice university have greater capacity to carry electrical current
But a series of tests at Rice showed the wet-spun carbon nanotube fiber still handily beat copper carrying up to four times as much current as a copper wire of the same mass.
Scanning electron microscope images show typical carbon nanotube fibers created at Rice university and broken into two by high-current-induced Joule heating.
Just a year ago the journal Science reported that Pasquali's lab in collaboration with scientists at the Dutch firm Teijin Aramid created a very strong conductive fiber out of carbon nanotubes.
Certain types of carbon nanotubes can carry far more electricity than copper. The ideal cable would be made of long metallic armchair nanotubes that would transmit current over great distances with negligible loss
and materials scientists working on carbon nanotubes. That has generated some confusion in the literature over the right comparisons to make he said.
The outcome is that these fibers have the highest CCC ever reported for any carbon-based fibers Kono said.
but we have the advantage that carbon fiber is light. So if you divide the CCC by the mass we win.
#Madagascar sells first forest carbon credits to Microsoftthe Government of Madagascar has approved carbon sales with Microsoft
and its carbon offset partner The Carbonneutral Company and Zoo Zurich. The carbon credit sales will support the Government of Madagascar's REDD+Project (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus conservation) in the Makira Natural Park and mark the first sale
of government-owned REDD+credits in Africa. Through carbon credit sales from avoided deforestation the Makira REDD+Project will finance the long-term conservation of one of Madagascar's most pristine remaining rainforest ecosystems harboring rare and threatened plants and animals
while improving community land stewardship and supporting the livelihoods of the local people. Through a unique funding distribution mechanism designed by WCS
and the Government of Madagascar the funds from carbon sales will be used by the Government of Madagascar for conservation capacity building
The Government of Madagascar is thrilled to have played the role of pioneer in carbon sales in Africa.
and Zoo Zurich and join us in this effort to conserve Madagascar's unique biodiversity through the sale of future carbon credits said Pierre Manganirina Randrianarisoa the Secretary general of the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
and a first for Madagascar in advancing the use of carbon credits to fight climate change while protecting biodiversity and human livelihoods.
The Makira project enables clients to do this by selling carbon credits while also delivering biodiversity value and community support.
Last September the Government of Madagascar and WCS announced that 710588 carbon credits had been certified for sale from the Makira Forest REDD+Project.
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.
and verified by the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and has received a'Gold'level validation by the Climate Community and Biodiversity Alliance.
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