Office of Biological and Environmental Research Weekly Report

July 21, 2008

New Capability to Radiolabel Formaldehyde Will Enable New Imaging and Environmental Studies: SC-supported scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) have devised a simple, fast method for adding a radioactive “tag” to formaldehyde, a common organic chemical. Testing a variety of approaches, the Brookhaven team came up with a synthesis method using commercially available, inexpensive trimethylamine-N-oxide, that they found to be highly effective at converting carbon-11-labeled methyl iodide to carbon-11-labeled formaldehyde under mild conditions. Furthermore, the reactions require no special equipment and produce high yields of carbon-11-labeled formaldehyde after only a few minutes. The labeled formaldehyde has two major applications: (1) as a precursor to synthesize a whole new class of radiotracers, compounds that can be tracked by positron emission tomography (PET) scanners to monitor the movement and interactions of a wide range of chemicals in biological systems, and (2) to study and track formaldehyde as an environmental contaminant. The study was led by Dr. Jacob Hooker with graduate students, Matthias Schonberger and Hanno Schieferstein of the University of Mainz. The study appeared in the July 4, 2008 issue of Angewandte Chemie International Edition. The BNL scientists have also been contacted by Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) for a possible chemistry news story. Refer to http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=805 for details.

Media Interest: No

Contact: Prem Srivastava, SC-23.2, (301) 903-4071

Will Changes in Atmospheric Composition Caused by Fossil Fuel use Affect Pulpwood Quality? Fossil fuel use is causing an increase in the concentrations of both carbon dioxide and ozone in the atmosphere. Both gases can affect the physiology of trees so they might affect the quality of wood grown for pulp, i.e., tree stems grown principally to make wood pulp used in paper production and for some other wood products such as oriented strand board. Trees grown as part of the SC Program for Ecosystem Research's large-scale elevated-carbon-dioxide and elevated-ozone ecosystem experiment in northern Wisconsin provide a unique opportunity to experimentally determine whether future increases in carbon dioxide and ozone concentration might affect pulpwood quality. Using those trees, a team of scientists from Europe and the United States determined that the quality of wood from aspen trees was unaffected by elevated carbon dioxide and ozone concentrations, but that increased carbon dioxide and ozone increased the fraction of undesirable "extractives" in paper birch trees. This result indicates the possibility that the byproducts of fossil-fuel use might have a modestly negative effect on the economically important pulpwood industry. The research was reported earlier this year in the international journal Tree Physiology.

Media Interest: Possibly

Contact: Jeffrey S. Amthor, SC-23.1, (301) 903-2507

LBNL Researchers Win R&D 100 Award for Phylochip Development. Tools for rapid characterization of complex microbial communities are needed to detect and identify microorganisms in a variety of environmental samples. SC researchers at LBNL have developed a microarray technique known as the Phylochip that can detect and identify thousands of different species of microorganisms very rapidly. The Phylochip provides the capability for unprecedented detection and identification in a device about the size of a quarter. The Phylochip was developed by Gary Andersen, Todd DeSantis, Eoin Brodie and Yvette Piceno from LBNL’s Earth Sciences Division. The device has been used to identify airborne bacterial species as part of a biodefense project, to assess microbial communities involved in environmental cleanup projects, and will help to advance the understanding of microbial processes involved in biofuel production and carbon sequestration. The prestigious R&D 100 awards are given in recognition of the top 100 significant technological advances over the past year.

Media Interest: No

Contact: Robert T. Anderson, SC 23.1, (301) 903-5549; Dan Drell, SC 23.2, (301) 903- 4742

Biofuels Researcher Receives Fulbright Senior Research Award. Dr. Kenneth E. Hammel, research chemist at the US Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory, has been named recipient of a Fulbright Senior Research Award by the German-American Fulbright Program. Dr. Hammel, a SC-supported researcher, studies mechanisms of lignin degradation by fungi, a key step in the conversion of lignocellulose into a chemical form that can be more easily converted into biofuels. He is using new solution-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy as well as isotope enrichment strategies to characterize the fundamental biochemical mechanisms used by a variety of fungi to degrade lignin. Dr. Hammel will spend 10 months abroad studying newly discovered fungal enzymes that have an important role in carbon cycling in forest soils. These enzymes also have potential applications in the development of biotechnology solutions for selective oxidations of chemicals.

Media Interest: None

Contact: Arthur Katz, SC-23.2, (301) 903-4932

Geochemical Research Sheds Light on Plutonium Mobility in the Environment. There is a concern that the mobility of plutonium (Pu) in the environment at some DOE legacy waste sites may be increased due to the formation of complexes with the metal-complexing compound ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), which was co-disposed with Pu. At issue is whether EDTA enhances the solubility and therefore the mobility of Pu(IV). Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory examined the mobility of Pu(IV)-EDTA complexes under common environmental conditions and found that they are not as mobile as previously assumed. The complexation of Pu(IV) with EDTA is affected by competitive complexation reactions with other common inorganic species such as Fe, Al, Ca and Mg. EDTA also readily adsorbs to geologic materials and is biodegraded by microorganisms commonly found in the environment. These other competitive reactions ultimately reduce the potential for EDTA to complex and mobilize Pu in the environment suggesting that Pu(IV)-EDTA complexes are not responsible for the observed mobility of Pu in the environment.

Reference: Journal of Solution Chemistry, 2008, vol. 37:957-986.

Media Interest: No

Contact: Robert T. Anderson, SC-23.1, (301) 903-5549

New Method Improves Estimates of Upper-Ocean Warming and Multi-Decadal Sea-Level Rise: Changes in the climate system’s energy budget (the combination of solar radiation and heat in earth systems) are primarily seen in ocean temperatures and the associated contribution of thermal expansion to sea-level rise. However, studying and modeling these phenomena are not simple. There is sparse observational data suggesting large decadal variability in globally averaged ocean heat content but this variability cannot be reproduced in climate models even when volcanic and other climate forcings are included. Also, the sum of observed contributions to ocean thermal expansion does not adequately explain the multi-decadal rise in sea-level. Recent work by SC researcher Peter Gleckler and his colleagues improves estimates of near-global ocean heat content and thermal expansion for the upper portions of the oceans for the period 1950–2003. Using these new estimates, the decadal variability of the climate models with volcanic forcing included now agrees approximately with observations although the modeled multi-decadal trends are smaller than observed. These improved estimates move us one step closer to the development of well integrated, global climate models needed to understand and predict the current and future climate.

Reference: Domingues C.M., J.A. Church, N.J. White, P. J. Gleckler, S. E. Wijffels, P.l M. Barker and J.R. Dunn, 2008: Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise. Nature, 453, doi: :10.1038/nature07080

Media Interest:  No

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

Enhanced Visualization Tool Available at the ARM Climate Research Facility (ACRF) Data Archive. The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program’s Climate Research Facility Data Archive rolled out an enhanced software tool (NCVweb) that allows users to extract a subset of fields from a data stream to create custom files. The new data extraction capability also performs a number of visualization functions that would be time-consuming or difficult for users to do themselves, especially users new to ARM-formatted files. NCVweb has many powerful features such as producing detailed tables of the data file contents, data extraction, generating statistics, and plotting one variable against another. The enhanced tool helps to eliminate the need for and problems associated with downloading large volumes of data, installing and configuring visualization software, or writing custom data exploration software. Although NCVweb is currently limited to extractions from within a single data stream, plans are in place to expand the capability to merge data from several data streams into a single output product.

Media Interest: No

Contact: Wanda Ferrell, SC-23.1, (301) 903- 0043

The Changing Atmosphere Could Drive Forests to Use More Water. Fossil fuel use is causing an increase in the atmospheric concentrations of both carbon dioxide and ozone. In principle, an increase in the concentration of either gas can reduce the amount of water used by plants in transpiration (evaporation of water from plants), but a group of SC-sponsored scientists recently discovered that this was not the case in a unique and large-scale field experiment. The scientists directly measured effects of elevated carbon dioxide and ozone concentrations on forest-tree transpiration in the SC Program for Ecosystem Research's ecosystem-scale elevated-carbon-dioxide and elevated-ozone field experiment in northern Wisconsin forest stands (the world's largest long-term study of ecological effects of changes in atmospheric composition). They found that increasing the concentration of the gases 40-50% above ambient concentrations caused an increase in transpiration of about 14%. The results indicate that, if other factors remain constant, increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and ozone might cause an increase in water use by temperate forests. These findings alter our basic understanding of interactions between atmospheric composition and water cycling in forests. The research was recently reported in the journal Tree Physiology.

Media Interest: Possibly

Contact: Jeffrey S. Amthor, SC-23.1, (301) 903-2507

Accelerated Arctic land warming and permafrost degradation during rapid sea ice loss. Simulations of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM) suggest periods of rapid Arctic sea ice loss in the next fifty years. In 2007, Arctic sea ice shrank to more than 30 percent below average, a modern-day record. From August to October last year, air temperatures over the western Arctic were also unusually warm, reaching more than 2°C above the 1978-2006 average. This raises the question of whether or not unusually low sea-ice and warm land temperatures are related. In a study published in the June 13, 2008 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, SC researcher David Lawrence and colleagues from the National Center for Atmospheric Research found that simulated western Arctic land warming trends during rapid sea ice loss were 3.5 times greater than average simulated 21st century climate-change trends. The accelerated warming also penetrated up to 1500km inland throughout most of the year, peaking in autumn. Experiments using the Community Land Model (the land component of the CCSM) indicate that an accelerated warming period substantially increases ground heat accumulation leading to rapid degradation of warm permafrost and possibly increasing the vulnerability of colder permafrost to degradation. These results imply a link between rapid sea ice loss, permafrost health, and Arctic land warming.

Reference: Lawrence, D.M., A.G. Slater, R.A. Tomas, M.M. Holland, and C. Deser, 2008: Accelerated Arctic land warming and permafrost degradation during rapid sea ice loss. Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L11506, doi:10.1029/2008GL033985.

Media Interest: Yes

Contact: Anjuli Bamzai, SC-23.3, (301) 903-0294

Students Shine at Summer Colloquium on Numerical Techniques for Global Atmospheric Models: The 2008 National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Advanced Study Program (ASP) summer colloquium on Numerical Techniques for Global Atmospheric Models was held in Boulder June 1-13, 2008. Latest developments in petascale-ready numerical methods for Atmospheric General Circulation Models were surveyed. The agenda included an unprecedented student-run dynamical core inter-comparison project, attended by close to 40 graduate students. The students were exposed to the key ideas in atmospheric science and mathematics that will be used to build the next generation of atmospheric model dynamical cores. Eleven modeling groups, including those from international modeling centers, collaborated in the development of a suite of standardized test cases focused on the key capabilities needed for these models. The students also obtained hands on experience with NCAR's Bluevista supercomputer. Working with the modeling groups, they performed all the simulations on Bluevista and conducted analysis and visualization of the results. Organizers of this year’s colloquium included DOE sponsored researchers Christiane Jablonowksi from University of Michigan and Mark Taylor from Sandia National Laboratory.

URL: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cms/pel/colloquium.html

Media Interest: No

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

University of Tennessee Field Day Includes DOE’s Program on Carbon Sequestration in Terrestrial Ecosystems (CSiTE). The University of Tennesse is holding its 2008 Field Day on July 24, 2008, with 19 different tours being offered. Three of this year’s tours will include the production of switchgrass, bioenergy, and storage of carbon in soils of the switchgrass system. DOE’s CSiTE program will participate at the Milan, Tennessee site. CSiTE is a joint Laboratory Program that investigates properties and processes of terrestrial carbon sequestration. A part of their field research is carried out at the Milan Switchgrass site. The Field Day draws visitors from around the country, and over 3,000 visitors attended previous events. Chuck Garten and Robin Graham of ORNL will present research results on CSiTE research, discussing how switchgrass production as a feedstock for biofuel can provide a “double dividend,” since it also increases soil carbon sequestration, reducing the rate of CO₂ increase in the atmosphere.

Media Interest: Maybe

Contact: Roger C. Dahlman, SC-23.1, (301) 903-4951