and acreage timber harvests carbon storage water recycling and other forest benefits in some areas.
Tour's breakthrough unzipping technique for turning multiwalled carbon nanotubes into GNRS first revealed in Nature in 2009 has been licensed for industrial production.
#Carbons new champion: Carbyne, a simple chain of carbon atoms, strongest material of all? Carbyne will be the strongest of a new class of microscopic materials
if and when anyone can make it in bulk. If they do they'll find carbyne nanorods
Carbyne is a chain of carbon atoms held together by either double or alternating single and triple atomic bonds.
*It has twice the tensile stiffness of graphene and carbon nanotubes and nearly three times that of diamond.*
That's a remarkable set of qualities for a simple string of carbon atoms Yakobson said.
Based on the calculations he said carbyne might be the highest energy state for stable carbon.
For carbon that would be followed graphite by diamond then nanotubes then fullerenes. But nobody asks about the highest energy configuration.
Instead the researchers found carbon atoms on separate strings might overcome the barrier in one spot
because it stores carbon in the soil says Sebastian Behrens. Indigenous peoples in tropical zones of South america and Africa were aware of biochar's positive effect on soil
The study also suggests trees might be storing more carbon than currently estimated. The take away from this is that a combination of short
and that raises questions about whether on average forests are socking away more carbon than we think.
#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.
Although they appear to be perfectly straight under high magnification we found waviness in the carbon nanotubes that we believe accounts for the difference in
The research which was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was published online August 31 2013 in the journal Carbon.
Carbon nanotubes provide many attractive properties including high electrical and thermal conductivity and high strength.
Individual carbon nanotubes have a modulus ranging from 100 gigapascals to 1. 5 terapascals. Arrays of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes with a low density would be expected to a have an effective modulus of at least five to 150 gigapascals Sitaraman said
but scientists have measured typically values that are four orders or magnitude less--between one and 10 megapascals.
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.
To look for potential explanations the researchers examined the carbon nanotubes using scanning electron microscopes located in Georgia Tech's Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology facilities.
We found very tiny kinks in the carbon nanotubes said Sitaraman. Although they appeared to be perfectly straight there was waviness in them.
We took into account the contact between the carbon nanotubes said Chen. 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.
The beauty of the carbon nanotubes is that they act like springs between the silicon chip
Carbon nanotubes have extraordinarily high thermal conductivity as much as ten times that of copper making them ideal for drawing heat away from the chips.
-and water-holding properties of soil but its popularity in recent years also owes to its ability to reduce greenhouse gases by storing carbon in soil in some cases for many centuries.
#First long temperature reconstruction for the eastern Mediterranean based on tree ringsfor the first time a long temperature reconstruction on the basis of stable carbon isotopes in tree rings has been achieved for the eastern Mediterranean.
The analysis of carbon isotope ratios (13c/12c) in tree rings aims to close this research gap.
The carbon isotope ratios measured in individual tree rings largely depends on the environmental conditions; thus the varying tree-ring isotope values are good indicators for changes in the environment.
The carbon isotope ratios in the trees from Turkey indicate a temperature sensitivity of the trees during late winter to early spring.
This can have important impacts not only on plant composition diversity and succession within a community but also in the cycling of critical elements like carbon and nitrogen on a larger potentially even global scale.
Some convert atmospheric nitrogen into bioavailable forms that are exchanged then for carbon from the plant.
Bioavailable nitrogen is frequently limiting in soils yet many invaded ecosystems have more carbon and nitrogen in plant tissues and soils compared with systems dominated by native plants.
and waterways by agricultural chemicals as well as carbon costs because of vehicles and artificial fertiliser necessary to maintain the pasture.
While we applaud China's rapid development in clean energy we must be cautious about this simultaneous high-carbon leapfrogging.
but scientifically simplistic perception that biofuels such as ethanol are inherently carbon neutral meaning that the heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas emitted
Decicco's direct carbon accounting examines carbon sources and sinks (storage sites such as forests or crop fields) separately an approach that lends greater clarity about options for addressing carbon dioxide emissions from liquid fuels.
#Densest array of carbon nanotubes grown to datecarbon nanotubes'outstanding mechanical electrical and thermal properties make them an alluring material to electronics manufacturers.
The high density aspect is overlooked often in many carbon nanotube growth processes and is an unusual feature of our approach says John Robertson a professor in the electronic devices
High-density forests are necessary for certain applications of carbon nanotubes like electronic interconnects and thermal interface materials he says.
Robertson and his colleagues grew carbon nanotubes on a conductive copper surface that was coated with co-catalysts cobalt and molybdenum.
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.
and ultimately the rate at which carbon is cycled as it is returned to the atmosphere. In wood products the sealed wood fiber cells are
#Plant community plays key role in controlling greenhouse gas emissions from carbon rich moorlandsdifferent moorland plants particularly heather
The findings published this week in the journal Ecology Letters show valuable carbon stores which lie deep below peaty moorlands are at risk from changes in climate
But the study found that the make-up of the plant community could also play a key role in controlling greenhouse gas emissions from these carbon rich ecosystems as not all vegetation types respond in the same way to warming.
This means that the way we manage peat land vegetation will strongly influence the way that peat land carbon sink strength responds to future climate change.
when looking at how global change affects carbon cycling she added. Otherwise a vital part is missing--the biology is a key ingredient.
If this is true then we can expect similar responses in other carbon rich systems in the Arctic and Boreal regions.
#Massive carbon credit sale announced in Madagascarthe Government of Madagascar and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced today that 705588 carbon credits are certified for sale from the Makira Forest REDD+Project.
WCS estimates that it will prevent the release of more than 32 million tons of CO2 over the next thirty years.
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
This sale is a major step forward for the Government of Madagascar in advancing the use of carbon credits to fight climate change
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.
Along with its benefits to wildlife the sale will directly benefit local communities living around the protected area by allocating 50 percent of the net revenues of carbon sales to improve local infrastructure provide health
Thus the sale of carbon stored in the protected forests of Makira Natural Park provides a significant financial opportunity for Madagascar.
The sale of these carbon credits has triple bottom-line benefits; it helps wildlife local people
and fights climate change said Todd Stevens Vice president of the Makira Carbon Company a nonprofit subsidiary of WCS.
and verified by the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and has received a'Gold'level validation by the Climate Community and Biodiversity Alliance.
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.
and is perceived to hold little value for timber carbon or biodiversity. Dr Struebig Lecturer in Biological Conservation from DICE explains:'
Similar environmentally extended input-output models combined with life cycle impact assessment methods have been used to calculate carbon footprints
#Tropical forest carbon absorption may hinge on an odd couplea unique housing arrangement between a specific group of tree species
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.
carbon sink or carbon-storage capacity. 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.
Legumes contributed more than half of the nitrogen needed to make that happen the researchers reported.
These fledgling woodlands had the capacity to store 50 metric tons of carbon per hectare (2. 47 acres)
Though the legumes'nitrogen fertilizer output waned in later years the species nonetheless took up carbon at rates that were up to nine times faster than non-legume trees.
By nurturing bigger healthier trees that take up more carbon legumes have realized a newly importance when it comes to influencing atmospheric carbon dioxide said second author Lars Hedin a Princeton professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and the Princeton Environmental Institute.
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.
Legumes are a group of plants that perform a valuable function but no one knew how much they help with the carbon sink Hedin said.
This work shows that they may be critical for the carbon sink and that the level of biodiversity in a tropical forest may determine the size of the carbon sink.
First author Sarah Batterman a postdoctoral research associate in Hedin's research group said legumes
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
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.
and improve predictions about the carbon sink Batterman said. Batterman and Hedin worked with Michiel van Breugel an STRI postdoctoral fellow;
Other research has shown that deep-rooted productive Brachiaria grasses capture large amounts of atmospheric carbon--on a scale similar to that of tropical forests--a further plus for climate change mitigation.
#Carbon farming schemes should consider multiple cobenefitscarbon markets and related international schemes that allow payments to landholders for planting trees sometimes called carbon farming are intended to support sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere.
But they will have harmful effects such as degrading ecosystems and causing food supply problems if other benefits and disbenefits from revegetating agricultural landscapes are taken not also into account in land-use decisions according to an article published in the October issue of Bioscience.
Brenda B. Lin of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and her colleagues assessed a variety of ways that people have attempted carbon farming.
Simple maximization of profit can lead landholders accessing carbon markets to create monoculture plantations which do not support biodiversity
--and revegetation of marginal or crop land can sequester carbon while also yielding a broad spectrum of environmental benefits.
Lin and her colleagues urge organizers of carbon farming schemes to move beyond a carbon-only focus
It will have far-reaching consequences for biodiversity and carbon storage. To test whether trees are migrating northward having faster turnover
#Calculating the carbon footprint of Californias productsnow that California's greenhouse gas cap -and-trade policy is law attention is shifting to recognizing industry efficiency.
The methods to calculate the carbon intensity of individual products--from tomato paste and milk to beer and wine--will help California more accurately determine the number of allowances allocated to these manufacturing facilities.
and plays an important role for the water and carbon balance including greenhouse gases. Even though it was clear that major problems were occurring in Mongolia in the past 20 years researchers were uncertain
if biorefineries receive money in the form of carbon credits for reducing pollution incentives for farmers should be included in contracts
but the biorefinery gets carbon credit for those sustainable practices. This should be worked into the contract--that
Rice chemist Lon Wilson and his colleagues are inserting bismuth compounds into single-walled carbon nanotubes to make a more effective contrast agent for computed tomography (CT) scanners.
Wilson said his team's studies showed stem cells readily absorb Bi@US-tubes without affecting their function The cells adjust over time to the incorporation of these chunks of carbon
The researchers analyzed the stable carbon isotopes within each tree ring as a recorder of physiological changes through time.
and whether trees stored less carbon as a result of winter injury U s. Forest Service and University of Vermont scientists came up with a surprising result--three decades later the canary is feeling much better.
and had a significant impact on carbon storage. They also found something they did not expect.
The study Quantifying the legacy of foliar winter injury on woody aboveground carbon sequestration of red spruce trees was published earlier this year in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.
and his colleagues also answered the question they set out to answer--how did the foliar damage associated with the 2003 winter injury affect carbon storage?
and resulted in cumulative reductions across the landscape equivalent to the carbon produced by burning 280 million gallons of gasoline.
According to the researchers this type of forest is a unique carbon sink containing the most abundant land carbon stocks on the planet.
Old-growth forests sequester carbon pollution and support the world's most diverse ecosystems. Mill Creek is an old-growth forest located in Del Norte Calif. in a geographically limited coastal redwood forest bioregion
#New technique for measuring tree growth cuts down on research timetree growth is measured to understand tree health fluxes in carbon sequestration and other forest ecosystem functions.
The swamps provide vital ecosystem functions like carbon storage and water purification. We wanted to be able to look at how baldcypress trees respond to changes in their environment such as differences in temperature water salinity
The researchers also found that the chemical weathering of these carbonate rocks adds to the carbon burden in rivers
Amazing cycling chemistryall cyanobacteria photosynthesize storing the energy of sunlight temporarily in ATP molecules and eventually in carbon-based molecules but only some of them fix nitrogen.
During the day the cells photosynthesize as fast as they can storing the carbon molecules they create in granules.
Then during the night they burn the carbon molecules as fast as they can. This uses up all the oxygen in the cell creating the anaerobic conditions needed for nitrogen fixation.
This will have a major impact on how carbon escapes from cow pats into the atmosphere. You see the important thing here is not just how much carbon is released explains Tomas Roslin head of the research team.
The question is rather in what form it is released. If carbon is first taken up by plants as carbon dioxide then emitted in the same format by the cows eating the plants then the effect of plants passing through cattle will be small in terms of global warming.
But if in the process the same carbon is converted from carbon dioxide to methane--a gas with a much higher impact on climate--it is then that we need to worry.
If the beetles can keep those methane emissions down well then we should obviously thank them
and the carbon concentration is lowered. The overuse of chemical fertilisers causes the soil to lose both its ability to hold water
Measurements indicated that the extreme weather events had a much greater impact on the carbon balance than had previously been assumed.
The indications that the part played by extreme weather events in the carbon balance had been underestimated prompted scientists from eight countries to launch the CARBO-Extreme Project.
Calculations from these values indicate how much carbon an ecosystem absorbs and releases in the form of carbon dioxide.
The team then fed the various readings into complex computer models to calculate the global effect of extreme weather on the carbon balance.
That is roughly equivalent to the amount of carbon sequestered in terrestrial environments every year says Markus Reichstein.
Periods of extreme drought in particular reduce the amount of carbon absorbed by forests meadows and agricultural land significantly.
We have found that it is not extremes of heat that cause the most problems for the carbon balance
As extreme climate events reduce the amount of carbon that the terrestrial ecosystems absorb and the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere therefore continues to increase more extreme weather could result explains Markus Reichstein.
This means that more carbon is accumulating in forests and other vegetation and soils in the Northern hemisphere during the summer and more carbon is being released in the fall
and winter says study lead scientist Heather Graven of SIO. It's not yet understood she says why the increase in seasonal amplitude of carbon dioxide concentration is so large
and higher carbon dioxideconcentrations the change in carbon dioxide amplitude over the last 50 years is expected larger than from these effects.
Other factors may be changes in the amount of carbon in leaves wood or roots; changes in the extent or species composition of ecosystems;
Soot also known as black carbon is made of fine carbon-based particles that are given off by car and truck tailpipes and wood stoves.
The model also considered how reducing soot could impact other atmospheric emissions including sulfur dioxide nitrous oxide and organic carbon.
#Weeds threaten carbon offset programsresearchers have identified gamba grass and other invasive weeds as a potential threat to landholder involvement in environmental offset programs such as the Carbon Farming Initiative.
Strategic savanna burning is one way to reduce Australia's carbon emissions and create new markets in northern Australia
but the increased fuel load and emissions from weed infestations could make it unfeasible. Dr Vanessa Adams says that late dry season wildfires in Australia's tropical north generate about 3%of the country's annual greenhouse gas emissions so strategic burning could be an important abatement activity.
--and the costs of managing gamba grass--$40 per hectare--meaning that much more savanna needs to be enrolled for carbon farming to cover the costs of weed eradication.
and length of its branches--predicts how much carbon and water a tree exchanges with the environment in relation to its overall size independently of the species. This theory can be used to scale the size of plants to their function such as amount of photosynthesis water loss
and wanted to know how much carbon this forest puts out our study supports the idea that you might only have to look at the properties of a few trees representing the
The technique dubbed carbon farming consists in planting trees in arid regions on a large scale to capture CO2.
Carbon farming addresses the root source of climate change: the emission of carbon dioxide by human activities says first-author Klaus Becker of the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart.
When it comes to sequestering carbon from the atmosphere the team shows that Jatropha curcas does it better.
To our knowledge this is the first time experts in irrigation desalination carbon sequestration economics and atmospheric sciences have come together to analyse the feasibility of a large-scale plantation to capture carbon dioxide in a comprehensive manner.
With about one billion hectares suitable for carbon farming the method could sequester a significant portion of the CO2. added to the atmosphere since the industrial revolution.
Carbon farming's price tag ranges from 42 to 63 euros per tonne of CO2. making it competitive with other CO2. reduction techniques such as carbon capture and storage.
From our point of view afforestation as a geoengineering option for carbon sequestration is the most efficient
The team hopes the new research will get enough people informed about carbon farming to establish a pilot project.
Otherwise the loss of wildlife will result in a disastrous spiral of forest degradation that will reduce the storage of carbon and the resilience of rainforests to climate change.
and apes could reduce the ability of forests to sequester carbon. The clock is ticking on the future of large mammals in Central africa's Congo Basin Rainforest
#First high-resolution national carbon map of Panamaa team of researchers has mapped for the first time the above ground carbon density of an entire country in high fidelity.
and to quantify carbon stocks throughout the Republic of Panama. The results are the first maps that report carbon stocks locally in areas as small as a hectare (2. 5 acres)
and yet cover millions of hectares in a short time. The system has demonstrated the lowest uncertainty of any carbon-counting approach yet--a carbon estimation uncertainty of about 10%in each hectareoverflown with Lidar as compared to field-based estimates.
Importantly it can be used across a wide range of vegetation types worldwide. The new system described in Carbon Balance
and Management will greatly boost conservation and efforts to mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration.
It will also inform our understanding of how carbon storage can be used to assess other fundamental ecosystem characteristics such as hydrology habitat quality and biodiversity.
The approach provides much-needed technical support for carbon-based economic activities such as the United nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) program in developing countries.
Panama has complex landscapes with variable topography and diverse ecosystems (ranging from grasslands and mangroves to shrublands and dense forests).
and test a method for quantifying aboveground carbon. Lead author Greg Asner commented: Three things make this national-scale study unique.
First Panama is an outstanding place for testing carbon mapping approaches due in part to the long-term forest studies that have been undertaken by our partners at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI.
Lidar uses reflected laser light to image vegetation canopy structure in 3-D. The scientists calibrated the Lidar measurements taken at one-meter resolution throughout nearly one million acres (390000 hectares) to the carbon
They used 91 other plots to validate the Lidar's aboveground carbon density estimates. Rarely has such a large number of field plots been available to validate Lidar calibration independently remarked Asner.
Traditional carbon monitoring has relied upon on-the-ground sampling of field plots but this approach usually represents just small areas of land
It directly probes the ecosystem's physical structure which Carnegie scientists have repeatedly proven to be linked tightly to tropical carbon stocks.
and estimating the amount of carbon locked up in plants from dense forests to shrublands. The researchers then were able to scale up the plot and Lidar data with freely available satellite data on topography rainfall and vegetation to model carbon stocks at the national level.
The Lidar and satellite combination were able to account for variations in the carbon pattern from differences in elevation slope climate
and fractional canopy cover over the entire country. For instance the scientists found that highest carbon levels are in humid forests on the Caribbean side of Panama often exceeding 110 tons of carbon per hectare (2. 5 acres.
In contrast large regions were deforested to very low carbon levels such as in the developed regions outside the protected watershed of the Panama canal.
Human activity is the overwhelming driver of carbon stock patterns in Panama. Panama is one of the first UN REDD partner countries
and these new maps put the country at the forefront of high-resolution ecosystem management. said co-author
and STRI's director Eldredge Bermingham The new carbon mapping approach could be the model for other tropical nations.
Watch the Carnegie Airborne Observatory make the world's highest resolution carbon map of a country (Panama) in less than one minute http://www. youtube. com/watch?
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