Climate change threat to berries

Scientists in Scotland have joined an international forum working to safeguard the future of the multi-million pound soft fruit industry.
They want to protect future production of fruit like raspberries and blackcurrants from climate change.
Raspberry production alone earns Scotland's farmers, many in the Tayside area, about £12m a year.
The Scottish Crop Research Institute near Dundee is also at the forefront of developing new varieties of fruit.
The Glen Ample raspberry, bred at the centre in Invergowrie, is the most popular in the UK.
The scientists are joining colleagues in a number of other northern European countries to ensure the soft fruit industry survives the challenges ahead, including climate change.
The international project will focus on reducing the use of chemicals, making production more environmentally friendly and increased production of fresh and processed soft fruits.
The research institute's lead scientist, Dr Derek Stewart, said it was a "huge boost" for the centre to be involved in the project.
"Our role in the ClimaFruit project is recognition that SCRI is the lead organisation in the UK for soft fruit research and breeding," he said.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/8519793.stmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/8519793.stm

Raise high the 'smart roof' carpenters

'Smart' roof shingle coated in waste oil-based polymer.

(Credit: Ben Wen, Ph.D.)

A group of scientists with funding from the Department of Energy has presented a new type of roof coating that would allow all the benefits and none of the drawbacks of black and white roofs combined.
It's long been agreed that a white roof, because it naturally reflects sunlight, reduces the amount of heat a building absorbs in extremely hot and sunny situations, thus, contributing to keeping the building cool (think Greece). Some have even gone as far as to propose white "green" roofs as a geoengineering idea for reducing global warming because they may both reduce air conditioning use and reflect more sunlight back into space if used en masse.
Meanwhile, a black roof absorbs sunlight and can help reduce building heating needs in places with cold but sunny winters (think Boston on a good year).
But wouldn't it be nice if you could have it both ways?

Ordinary asphault roof shingle before coating.

(Credit: Ben Wen, Ph.D.)

A new "smart roof" coating invented by a group of scientists from the research and development company United Environment & Energy offers that option. The liquid polymer made from fast-food waste oil hardens into plastic once applied and dry. It then reflects strong sunlight in hot weather but switches roles to absorb and transmit heat in cold weather.
It can be applied to any type of roof, according to the scientists. When tested, it showed a decrease in roof temperature between 50 and 80 percent in warm weather when compared to regular asphalt shingles, and an increase in roof temperature by 80 percent in cold weather.
"This is one of the most innovative and practical roofing coating materials developed to date," Ben Wen, leader of the research project and vice president of United Environment and Energy, said in a statement. The project was funded in part by a grant from the Department of Energy.
"In addition, it will provide a new use for millions of gallons of waste oil after it is used to cook French fries and chicken nuggets," said Wen.
But, Wen noted, the coating does not smell like French fries as with most fast-food waste oil. Instead, the group's polymer coating is "virtually odorless."
The polymer invention was presented in March at this year's 239th American Chemical Society national conference in San Francisco.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10471846-54.html#ixzz1If0KFUAA

Hydropower: Going With the Flow

Hydropower is electricity generated using the energy of moving water. Rain or melted snow, usually originating in hills and mountains, create streams and rivers that eventually run to the ocean. The energy of that moving water can be substantial, as anyone who has been whitewater rafting knows.

This energy has been exploited for centuries. Farmers since the ancient Greeks have used water wheels to grind wheat into flour. Placed in a river, a water wheel picks up flowing water in buckets located around the wheel. The kinetic energy of the flowing river turns the wheel and is converted into mechanical energy that runs the mill.

In the late 19th century, hydropower became a source for generating electricity. The first hydroelectric power plant was built at Niagara Falls in 1879. In 1881, street lamps in the city of Niagara Falls were powered by hydropower. In 1882 the world’s first hydroelectric power plant began operating in the United States in Appleton, Wisconsin.

A typical hydro plant is a system with three parts: an electric plant where the electricity is produced; a dam that can be opened or closed to control water flow; and a reservoir where water can be stored. The water behind the dam flows through an intake and pushes against blades in a turbine, causing them to turn. The turbine spins a generator to produce electricity. The amount of electricity that can be generated depends on how far the water drops and how much water moves through the system. The electricity can be transported over long-distance electric lines to homes, factories, and businesses.

Hydroelectric power provides almost one-fifth of the world's electricity. China, Canada, Brazil, the United States, and Russia were the five largest producers of hydropower in 2004. One of the world's largest hydro plants is at Three Gorges on China's Yangtze River. The reservoir for this facility started filling in 2003, but the plant is not expected to be fully operational until 2009. The dam is 1.4 miles (2.3 kilometers) wide and 607 feet (185 meters) high.

The biggest hydro plant in the United States is located at the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in northern Washington. More than 70 percent of the electricity made in Washington State is produced by hydroelectric facilities.

Hydropower is the cheapest way to generate electricity today. That's because once a dam has been built and the equipment installed, the energy source—flowing water—is free. It's a clean fuel source that is renewable yearly by snow and rainfall.

Hydropower is also readily available; engineers can control the flow of water through the turbines to produce electricity on demand. In addition, reservoirs may offer recreational opportunities, such as swimming and boating.

But damming rivers may destroy or disrupt wildlife and other natural resources. Some fish, like salmon, may be prevented from swimming upstream to spawn. Technologies like fish ladders help salmon go up over dams and enter upstream spawning areas, but the presence of hydroelectric dams changes their migration patterns and hurts fish populations. Hydropower plants can also cause low dissolved oxygen levels in the water, which is harmful to river habitats.

Shift in Northern Forests Could Increase Global Warming

Boreal forests across the Northern hemisphere are undergoing rapid, transformative shifts as a result of a warming climate that, in some cases, is triggering feedback loops producing even more regional warming, according to several new studies.

Russia's boreal forest - the largest continuous expanse of forest in the world - has seen a transformation in recent years from larch to conifer trees, according to new research by University of Virginia researchers.

In Alaska, where the larch were largely devastated by a disease outbreak in the late '90s, vast swathes of forest are becoming inhospitable to the dominant white and black spruce.

"The climate has shifted. It's done, it's clear, and the climate has become unsuitable for the growth of the boreal forest across most of the area that it currently occupies," said Glenn Juday, a forestry professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

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Panorama of Species Tweaks Life for Climate

Over the past 540 million years, life on Earth has passed through five great mass extinctions. In each of those catastrophes, an estimated 75 percent or more of all species disappeared in a few million years or less. For decades, scientists have warned that humans may be ushering in a sixth mass extinction, and recently a group of scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, tested the hypothesis. They applied new statistical methods to a new generation of fossil databases. As they reported last month in the journal Nature, the current rate of extinctions is far above normal. If endangered species continue to disappear, we will indeed experience a sixth extinction, over just the next few centuries or millennia.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/science/earth/05climate.html?_r=1&ref=earth

The Truth, Still Inconvenient

So the joke begins like this: An economist, a lawyer and a professor of marketing walk into a room. What’s the punch line? They were three of the five “expert witnesses” Republicans called for last week’s Congressional hearing on climate science.

But the joke actually ended up being on the Republicans, when one of the two actual scientists they invited to testify went off script.

Prof. Richard Muller of Berkeley, a physicist who has gotten into the climate skeptic game, has been leading the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, an effort partially financed by none other than the Koch foundation. And climate deniers — who claim that researchers at NASA and other groups analyzing climate trends have massaged and distorted the data — had been hoping that the Berkeley project would conclude that global warming is a myth.

Wet Winter Can't Slake West's Thirst

BOULDER CITY, Nev.—For the 30 million Americans who depend on the Colorado River for their water, this past winter's soaking rains and snows will only leave them thirsting for more.

Water managers warn that Lake Mead, the West's largest and most important reservoir, remains perilously near the level of 1,075 feet at which the U.S. Secretary of the Interior would likely declare a water shortage, for the first time in the nearly century-old history of the Colorado River system. Such a shortage would parch Nevada, Arizona and California with severe water-use restrictions. There alone, some 20 million people depend on Lake Mead's supplies.