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Wind turbines in places like agricultural fields of Central America can provide greater benefits than just electricity generation. The giant spinning blades that generate renewable energy could also help the corn and soybean stays cooler and dry, helping them fend off fungi and improve their ability to extract air and soil carbon dioxide they need to grow.
The team of Gene Takle, an expert in agricultural meteorology Ames Laboratory, U.S., presented the preliminary results of a research program aimed at studying the interaction of wind turbines surrounding crops.
Takle and his partner Julie Lundquist, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, have completed the first phase of its investigation, and are sure that wind turbines produce significant effects on the microclimate of plantations nearby.
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A UAB research shows that using CO2 instead of hydrochloric acid pools reduces harmful compounds in the air, while maintaining efficacy and reducing the pH of the water. In addition, CO2 has environmental advantages, since its use in water reduces the balance of greenhouse gas emissions and water renewal, once discarded in the middle, is less harmful to organisms. The research is published in the journal Chemosphere.
UAB researchers have examined the effect of using carbon dioxide (CO2) in lieu of hydrochloric acid (HCl) to control the acidity (pH) of water in the pools, in combination with sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) for disinfection. The research has been carried out experimentally over 4 years in two pools and a pool UAB Consell Català de l’Esport, Barcelona. The pool water was treated with CO2 and HCl in alternating periods, and scientists examined the composition of water and air near the surface (the swimmers breathe).
The findings, published in the journal Chemosphere, have shown that the CO2 has clear advantages with respect to hydrochloric acid. The first of these advantages, which motivated the research is that using CO2 avoids the possibility of accidental admixture of hydrochloric acid and sodium hypochlorite, causing a reaction that releases large amount of toxic gas, which is a risk to staff handling these compounds and for users of the pool.
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For the Russian astrophysicist Khabiboullo Abdoussamatov , Head of Department of Space Studies of the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory Astrometry and project leader , developed compartment aboard the Russian Space Station (ISS ) , the period of global warming is over . He even announced , soon , a new “little ice age “. For his colleague Piotr Sporychev , a researcher at the Geophysical Observatory main Rosguidromet ( Russian Meteorological Service ), no global cooling could threaten the Earth .
According Khabiboullo Abdoussamatov in 2014 will begin a new ice age. Humanity is heading towards a cooling , not warming , and she has much to fear , says the astrophysicist , who thinks he can soon make a concrete demonstration of what he says .
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The laughing gas or nitrous oxide, has a warming potential approximately 300 times higher than carbon dioxide. Yet it is far from occupying the center stage in the debate on global warming and the possibilities of countering it, unlike other chlorine-rich gas such as CFCs, methane or carbon dioxide. This situation is however about to be questioned. Indeed, for the first time, research results, Northwest Greenland show that the melting permafrost can cause surprising concentrations of nitrous oxide in the environment that can be found in the atmosphere. Moreover, if nitrous oxide is released in conjunction with temperature and precipitation increases in permafrost regions, this would add an unknown but important component of global warming. Bo Elberling, Professor of Environmental Geochemistry, Department of Geography and Geology University of Copenhagen, is the origin of these extraordinary results, which were published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
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Twenty years of field studies show that as the Earth has been warming, plants and soil microbes are emitted more carbon dioxide (CO2). The so-called “soil respiration” has risen by about one tenth of one percent each year since 1989.
Scientists have also estimated that the total amount of carbon dioxide that emanates from the soil is approximately 10 to 15 percent greater than previous measurements.
This increase in CO2 emitted by the earth (about 98 million tonnes per year since 1989) did not contribute to the greenhouse effect, unless it comes from carbon that was withdrawn from the atmosphere in prehistoric times and has been long time outside the system as currently carbon buried in the tundra.
The analysis in this study can not distinguish whether the carbon comes from old sources or vegetation growing faster today due to a hotter climate. But other evidence suggests that warming is releasing ancient carbon. Therefore, it will be very important to determine the extra carbon sources, as noted by the ecologist Ben Bond-Lamberty, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
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The new meta-analysis measured the weight on global emissions of carbon dioxide micro-organisms in the soil, which is increased by 1 percent in the last 20 years
Over the past 20 years carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased partly due to the increase of 1 per cent of the so-called “soil breathing” due to microorganisms that there are settlements, according to a new study published in the journal Nature signed by researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) of the Department of Energy of the United States.
During the research has measured the total contribution of soil carbon pollution, a result of 10-15 percent higher than previous measurements and amounted to 98 billion tons. The data allows researchers to formulate a better model of global carbon cycle and its impact on climate change.
“There is a great contribution of soil carbon dioxide throughout the world,” said ecologist Ben Bond-Lamberty of PNNL.
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A recent study at Oregon State University indicates that some previous estimates of the impacts of forest fires have overestimated the number of live trees made by fire, and the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result.
The investigation was carried out in the Metolius River Basin, where about one third (100,000 acres) of area burned in four major fires in 2002-03. Although some previous studies assumed that 30 percent of the mass of living trees was consumed during the forest fires in the new study has concluded that only 1 to 3 percent was consumed by flames .
Some estimates made at that time suggested that one of the four fires which occurred in 2003, released a 600 per cent more carbon emissions that any consumption of fossil fuel energy and that year in the state of Oregon. But in this new study has concluded that the four fires combined produced only about 2.5 percent of annual carbon emissions in that state.
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Given global warming, scientists are constantly seeking new sources of greenhouse gas emissions – and find them. Researchers at the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, which depends on the Russian Academy of Sciences, found that methane is produced due to the decomposition of wood.
In general, the decomposition of wood leads to the generation of carbon dioxide as greenhouse gas emissions. But it was discovered that when the wood is decomposed by fungi, another gas is produced – methane. Researchers have discovered using an infrared analyzer. Methane is present in the timber too, with its concentration is five times higher than that of carbon dioxide.
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According to a new report published by researchers at Lund University of Technology [1], the use of biogas produced from waste as fuel would reduce by 95% the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) compared with gasoline. The group of researchers conducted this study at the request of the Swedish Energy (Energimyndigheten) and is based on the observation of a unit of biogas production in the region of Scania. This case study aims to facilitate the analysis and optimization of other such facilities. In Sweden, there were about twenty whose output is used as fuel in vehicles. Added to this production, equivalent volume of biogas in the treatment of wastewater in sewage treatment plants.
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Are only visible under a microscope, but without them, life on the planet could exist in its current form. Marine unicellular algae and cyanobacteria produced by photosynthesis using solar energy organic compounds, affect the global cycles of elements and the number spoluutvareji environment for other organisms.
The online version of Science magazine, is now based on two studies of American marine biologists, which our knowledge of these photosynthetic organisms extend further details.
The first of them focused on the marine cyanobacteria able to fix atmospheric nitrogen. Although cyanobacteria fotosyntetizuji, but not the algae or plants. Their cellular structure is much simpler, are closely related bacteria. They can convert molecular nitrogen to ammonia usable by other organisms. Just about things in symbiotic bacteria living in root hlizkach pulses also freely in the soil.
Nitrogen is the limiting factor in the development of oceanic organisms.
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