Office of Biological and Environmental Research Weekly Report

March 9, 2009

Signing Ceremony for the ‘Cooperation and Defense Agreement – United States and Portugal.’ On March 27, a ceremony will be held to reenact the signing of an agreement between the U.S. Consulate and the President of the Azores for the deployment of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Mobile Facility on the island of Graciosa in the Azores, Portugal. Dr. Michael Kuperberg (BER) will represent the United States Department of Energy (DOE). On May 1, the site in Graciosa will become one of only five sites in the world where the DOE ARM Mobile Facility has been deployed. The twenty-month field campaign also provides opportunities for research for the University of the Azores and the Meteorological Institute of Portugal. The scientific objective of the experiment is to contribute to the overall understanding of the role of low stratiform clouds on climate change. This long-term campaign will make a significant contribution to the international community and climate change research and also mark the Azores as an important location for future international research. The data from the Graciosa experiment will be made available to scientists and academics around the world via the internet in near real time.

Media Interest: Yes, a press release is planned for March 27.

Contact: Wanda Ferrell, SC-23.1, (301) 903- 3281

New Model Describes Links Between Vertical Air Motion and Arctic Cloud Properties. DOE scientists have developed a model that explains aspects of the lifecycle of low-altitude Arctic clouds using ground-based measurements from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility. These clouds are often called “mixed-phase” clouds because of the co-existence of both water and ice. Lifting of air in these clouds leads to formation of liquid and ice particles. Subsequent descending air motion nearly eliminates the ice phase through sublimation and particles falling out of the clouds. It is important to understand the role of vertical air motion in determining the distribution of liquid and ice particles in these clouds because of their direct impact on Arctic climate through changes in the surface and atmospheric radiation budgets. These findings pave the way for improved representation of clouds in climate models.

Reference:

Shupe, M. D., P. Kollias, P. O. G. Persson, and G. M. McFarquhar, 2008: Vertical motions in Arctic mixed-phase stratiform clouds. J. Atmos. Sci. 65, 1304-1322.

Media Interest: No

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

Genomics Improves Contaminant Transport Simulations. Microbes profoundly affect the mobility of contaminants in the environment but current transport models over-simplify predictions of microbial activity in situ. DOE-funded researchers at Pacific Northwest National Lab and the Universities of Toronto and Massachusetts have coupled a genome-scale metabolic model of a uranium-reducing microorganism, Geobacter sulfurreducens, to the reactive transport code HYDROGEOCHEM to better predict the in situ bioremediation of uranium at the Rifle, Colorado, test site. This enabled the researchers to integrate field tests and laboratory investigations and to demonstrate important advances between current empirical methods of simulating microbial activity and the new genome-scale metabolic modeling approach. The new, genome-based approach better predicts the coupled physical, chemical, and biological processes influencing the mobility of contaminants in the environment. The approach can be extended to other natural environments and other microbes or microbial communities. It also demonstrates the importance of studying environmentally relevant microbes to describe important microbially-mediated processes in the environment.

Reference: Microbial Biotechnology., 2009, 2(2): 274-286.

Media Interest: No

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