Office of Biological and Environmental Research Weekly Report

May 4, 2009

DOE-Funded Scientist Becomes Member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Warren Washington, a long-standing scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric researcher, has been elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Now in its 229^th year, the Academy honors distinguished scientists, scholars, and leaders in public affairs, business administration, and the arts.

Dr. Washington’s election, a result of a highly competitive selection process, recognizes his outstanding contributions to climate change science and to society. New members will be formally inducted at the House of the Academy in Cambridge Massachusetts in October 2009. Dr. Washington joins a distinguished company of extraordinary individuals: from the founder, John Adams, to George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson in the eighteenth century; and Alexander Graham Bell, Charles Darwin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William and Henry James and Maria Mitchell in the nineteenth. A full list of active Academy members is available at www.amacad.org

Media Interest: Yes, maybe

Contact: Anjuli Bamzai, SC-23.1, (301) 903-0294

Monsoon Response in a Warming Planet: The seasonal mean rainfall associated with the Asian summer monsoon dictates agricultural output, water resources, and the livelihood of millions of people, thus, we need to know if monsoon precipitation will increase or decrease as climate changes. A new DOE study examines the response of the mean monsoon precipitation in simulations with 1% per year CO₂ increases from pre-industrial concentrations – so-called quadrupled CO₂ runs. The model projects that in a warmer climate, the monsoon precipitation over peninsular parts of India increases by about 10-15%. Analysis with a high spatial resolution regional model indicates that there will be an increase in the number of monsoon synoptic systems or storms that have wind speeds of 15-20 meters per second. The model results presented, though plausible, need to be taken with caution since even in this “best” model, systematic errors still exist.

Reference: M. Stowasser, H. Annamalai, and J. Hafner, 2009: Response of the South Asian Summer Monsoon to Global Warming: Mean and Synoptic Systems. J. Climate, 22, 1014-1036.

Media Interest: No

Contact: Anjuli Bamzai, SC-23.1, (301) 903-0294

Small Ice Crystals in High-altitude Clouds Do Impact Global Circulations. Scientists in DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program used a global climate model and found that moderate changes in the concentration of small ice crystals in high-altitude clouds, known as Cirrus clouds, had a large impact on the predicted climate. Using ARM measurements, new mathematical descriptions of ice particle sizes and concentrations, falling speeds, and radiative properties of cirrus clouds were incorporated into a community global climate model. Moderate increases in small ice crystal concentrations produced lower fall speeds, more cirrus cloud coverage (a 5.5% global increase) and ice content, and warmer atmosphere temperatures (over 3 ^oC) at high altitudes. In the tropical regions these changes had an overall cooling effect, but a warming effect elsewhere. Since the present methods to measure concentrations of small ice crystals in cirrus clouds have a high degree of uncertainty, these modeling results underscore the need to improve measurements for better quantification of climate change prediction.

Reference:

Mitchell, D.L., P.J. Rasch, D. Ivanova, G.M. McFarquhar, T. Nousiainen (2008), Impact of small ice crystal assumptions on ice sedimentation rates in cirrus clouds and GCM simulations. Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L09806, doi:10.1029/2008GL033552

Media Interest: No

Contact: Kiran Alapaty, SC-23.1, (301) 903-3175

Sustainability of Biofuels Workshop Report Issued. The joint USDA-DOE Office of Science Sustainability of Biofuels Workshop, held October 28–29, 2008, stimulated an interactive discussion among a wide range of experts on the state of the science and research needed to establish sustainable production and utilization of cellulosic biofuels. The workshop report has just been issued and is available at (http://genomicsgtl.energy.gov/biofuels/sustainability/). It summarizes the workshop and presents a series of new and critically important areas of research. Interdisciplinary teams involving scientists from the agricultural, ecological, socioeconomic, and information system communities will be required to fill knowledge and technology gaps and provide integrated solutions that effectively target specific challenges. This research, however, must maintain a holistic view of the entire biofuel production system and its socioecological impacts. DOE, USDA, and other federal agencies now have a unique opportunity to use the workshop recommendations to develop an integrated research agenda that addresses the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of cellulosic biofuels across multiple scales and ensures that this emerging industry has the information needed to grow sustainably.

Media Interest:  No

Contact:  John Houghton, SC-23.2, (301) 903-8288; Libby White, SC-23.2, (301) 903-7693