Posts Tagged ‘climate change’
Seventeen Years of Discovery in Duke Forest
Tuesday, June 1, 2010, 1:22 pm
Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide are pumped into four of the experimental rings. Photo: Will Owen
Late in 2010, an epic ecological experiment in the Triangle will begin drawing to a close when carbon dioxide stops pumping from four massive rings of towers in the Duke Forest. Since 1996, more than 250 scientists at Duke and dozens of other institutions have measured the response of this forest ecosystem to the elevated amounts of carbon dioxide expected in the Earth’s atmosphere in the future. They’ve measured tree and plant growth, photosynthesis, leaf size, soil composition, root growth, and water use in the plots bathed in elevated carbon dioxide and in three other “ambient” control plots.
The first, prototype ring was built in 1994; six more came in 1996 (three controls and three experiments). Each ring consists of 16 metal towers in a 30-meter diameter. Computer-controlled instruments in the experimental rings bathe the interior of the plot in carbon dioxide. It’s called Free-Air CO2 Enrichment, or FACE. As opposed to “chamber studies,” in which plants are studied in carefully controlled growth chambers or greenhouses, the rings are open to nature. That means that mammals and insects can circulate freely and that natural events like hurricanes, ice storms, and droughts affect the research site. Read more…
RTP researchers help track diseases linked to climate change
Tuesday, April 27, 2010, 8:53 pmDuke University researchers suspect climate change is a reason why a deadly new version of a tropical fungus is spreading in the temperate climate of the Pacific Northwest.
Cryptococcus gattii
In Africa, South America, Southeast Asia and Australia, crytococcus gattii infects eucalyptus trees and bothers people with compromised immune systems, such as HIV/AIDS patients and organ transplant recipients, who inhale its spores. But the strain that was first documented on Vancouver Island, Canada, a decade ago and has now spread to Seattle and Portland causes chest pain, fever, shortness of breath and weight loss in otherwise healthy people and has killed at least six of them.
In February 2007, the first North Carolina case, an otherwise healthy man, was treated at Duke University Medical Center, the Duke researchers reported in PLoS One. In a paper they published a week ago in PLoS Pathogen, the researchers wrote that the cryptococcus gattii strain in the Pacific Northwest was new, much more virulent and favored mammals.
RTI study: The cost of mandatory emissions controls
Thursday, December 10, 2009, 10:03 pmDuring a week of climate discussions in Copenhagen and Washington, RTI International released results from a study that looks at the costs of mandatory emissions controls.
The RTI analysis is based on the “Blueprint for Legislative Action,” a plan by the U.S. Climate Action Partnership that includes mandatory reductions of CO2 emissions. The partnership, which is a group of businesses and environmental organizations, recommended emissions reductions of 80 percent to 89 percent by 2020 and a 58 percent by 2030. Read more…
Acid ocean test looks to the past
Thursday, December 3, 2009, 10:03 pm
UNC marine scientist Justin Ries holds two tropical pencil urchins grown under different seawater acidities. (Photo by Tom Kelindinst, WHOI)
Unlocking causes of past mass extinction events is a nifty – if not controversial – trick. But forecasting the future while also explaining the geologic past is even niftier. And that is just what a new study attempts to do by documenting experimental effects of ocean acidification upon shelled marine invertebrates.
The study, published Dec. 1 in Geology and led by a University of North Carolina scientist, reports a spectrum of positive to negative responses across seven major groups of calcifying marine organisms. It also offers supporting evidence for understanding patterns of past mass extinction — and survival — seen 251 million years ago at the Permian-Triassic boundary. Read more…
