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2007 MESSAGE
FROM THE VICE PRESIDENT QUICK
LOOKS WARM
NEW WORLD Sidebar: Are oceans becoming acidic? LANGUAGE
911 THE
BEACH BUILDERS THE
LOST LEWIS AND CLARK BIRDS
AS BAROMETERS A
GROWING MYSTERY STUDENT
SCIENTIST INVITING
DISCOVERY Sidebar: Neurons get their close-up Sidebar: Core facility models molecules UNDERSTANDING
A HAZARDOUS WORLD Sidebar: Useful tools: toxic agents and air pollution Sidebar: Genes, the environment and you
ARCHIVE
Cover: An illustration of UM's Main Hall tower bathed in the glow of a fictitious smoldering Earth.
Vision is published annually by The University of Montana Office of the Vice President for Research and Development and University Relations. It is printed by UM Printing & Graphic Services. PUBLISHER: Daniel J. Dwyer. MANAGING EDITOR AND GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Cary Shimek. PHOTOGRAPHER: Todd Goodrich. CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Brianne Burrowes, Brenda Day, Judy Fredenberg, Joan Melcher, Rita Munzenrider, Patia Stephens and Alex Strickland. WEB DESIGN: Patia Stephens. EDITORIAL OFFICE: University Relations, Brantly Hall 330, Missoula, MT 59812, 406-243-5914. MANAGEMENT: Judy Fredenberg, Office of the Vice President for Research and Development, 116 Main Hall, Missoula, MT 59812, 406-243-6670.
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New World -- Continued Anna Klene’s most remote study site borders the Ivishak River, found in northern Alaska above the Arctic Circle many miles from the nearest village. The site is an acre copse of poplar — an oasis of forest surrounded by vast tundra ringed by mountains. When her group helicopters into this wilderness during the endless sunshine of summer, they make a lot of noise to scatter the huge moose and grizzlies living among the trees. Soon she locates a data logger attached to a tree, downloads its hourly temperature information into her laptop and gives it a fresh battery. At her other sites she would then take a measurement by sliding a thin metal pole into the ground. A high-pitched sound tells her when she hits a rock. A lower thump and she finds the buried ice that underlies everything in this part of the world. Here, however, the frozen ground is 4 to 6 meters deep, allowing trees to grow to heights not possible in the surrounding tundra. Klene specializes in climatology and periglacial geomorphology. (“Periaglacial” means “near glacial,” and geomorphology is the study of land surface processes.) She studies permafrost and the active layer on top of it that thaws in spring and summer, allowing plants to grow. She is trying to determine whether climate change has thickened the active layer. It’s a question that could have huge repercussions for that part of the world. Buildings, pipelines and other infrastructure there are designed with the idea that permafrost will live up to its name and stay frozen — otherwise structures sink into the ground. “Also, in this region vegetation has been growing and dying since the beginning of the last ice age,” she says. “But it doesn’t decay in the cold — it just builds up. So if the active layer thaws into the permafrost below, all this stored carbon becomes active and available. When we talk about how much carbon is frozen in these soils, it’s tremendous — more than is in the atmosphere right now.” So is the active layer thickening? Klene’s research group has found a mixed bag. She suspects the active layer was actually deeper in the 1960s, probably because of several warm years that punched dramatic increases in depth that slowly decreased. Some places now have a growing active layer, while other areas are holding stable. “It’s very regional, but now we are starting to see more thickening of the active layer,” she says. “My study group is part of the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring network — 150 sites in about 14 countries — that is watching the situation.” The way tundra freezes and thaws can slowly propel large rocks to the surface, and a few times Klene has found old human skeletons thrust from the ground in a similar fashion. It’s creepy for Klene and her fellow scientists, but it would be far worse if all the carbon stored in the frozen north followed suit. With climate change a looming issue, it has wormed its way into the work of a wide spectrum of UM researchers. Take, for instance, water resources geographer Sarah Halvorson, who found herself traveling a portion of the old Silk Road last summer in Tajikistan. It was the rough Pamir Highway, and soon the rented Russian van she shared with three fellow UM geographers broke down. But such mishaps and delays can be expected in the rugged, glacier-draped mountains of Central Asia. Halvorson studies water supplies of mountain communities — especially water-quality issues and how community members address water-related challenges. Tajikistan, like other countries with glaciers, is watching its ice sheets recede, and the nation contains the headwaters of the complex Amu Darya River Basin upon which millions rely. “Geographers are a real strong force when it comes to studying the human dimensions of climate change,” she says. “When we talk about water, it flows through all dimensions of life for mountain people, and in Tajikistan we already are seeing people relocated because of water shortages. They aren’t getting the glacier and snowmelt water they have historically expected, so they can’t grow their crops.” Such stories are heard more and more around the globe. So what can be done about climate change? Can we tough it out through the expected changes brought by rising temperatures, flooding islands and coastlines, human migrations, growing deserts, erratic weather, and animal and plant extinctions? If we do nothing, upheavals can be expected, but there will be winners as well as losers, such as milder winters and extended growing seasons marching north in Canada and Siberia. Ours is a society addicted to its carbon-spewing ways. The Hinkle Charitable Foundation estimates the average U.S. household contributed 12.4 tons of CO2 from home operations and 11.7 tons from automotive uses in 2003. Lowering this carbon footprint would require sacrifice and lifestyle changes. Running says doing nothing means continuing an epic experiment with our entire planet, leading to unknown consequences. Running admits he sometimes gets depressed when confronted by the enormity of climate change. Based on Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief, he has even outlined his own “Five Stages of Climate Grief.” They are denial (“I don’t believe the Earth is warming.”), anger (“I refuse to live in a tree house without lights and eat nuts and berries.”), bargaining (“Maybe it won’t be so bad.”), depression (“It’s happening, and we’re all doomed.”) and acceptance (“What can we do to get to work and help fix this?”). Running, who himself vacillates between stages four and five, says reining in CO2 emissions is the monumental task of our times, and he is a proponent of a plan outlined in the September 2006 issue of Scientific American to flatline carbon emissions. The world’s fossil fuel industries currently produce seven billion tons of carbon a year, and this is expected to double by 2056, bringing air CO2 levels to 560 parts per million — a level double the preindustrial value and widely regarded as capable of triggering massive climate changes. The article suggests 15 methods to remove a billion tons of carbon from this system, and says if seven of these are implemented, carbon emissions will stabilize before 2056. Implement more, and levels can drop. Each method is a “wedge” that can chop away at the rising elevation on Running’s graph of world carbon emissions. One example of a wedge is cutting electricity usage in homes, offices and stores by 26 percent. Another is increasing wind power 40-fold to replace coal. One would be to double today’s nuclear output to replace coal. Another would be to increase auto fuel economy from 30 to 60 miles per gallon. All suggested wedges can be accomplished with today’s technology. “It’s a way to break this massive problem into sections and then tackle those individually,” Running says. “I think technology can save us part of the way, but we are going to have to pitch in with lifestyle changes. We have to change our definition of what’s normal — and that may not be driving alone to work in a massive SUV.” He says lighting changes alone could save huge amounts of energy. He lauded compact fluorescent light bulbs, which use one-quarter the energy of conventional bulbs, and he says even those will soon give way to light-emitting diode products, which are another factor of four more efficient. “These are giant improvements,” he says. “Ten years from now you probably won’t see an incandescent light bulb anywhere.” Running also applauds advances such as thin-film solar panels — sheets of bendable plastic that provide power and cost a fraction of standard panels — and increased use of wind power. He is a bit leery of hydrogen fuel cells at this point, since right now the cheapest way to get hydrogen is from fossil fuels, which has the effect of shifting pollution around the globe but not improving the overall picture. If the hydrogen comes largely from renewable resources, a hydrogen economy would be more viable. And despite howls of protest from his environmentalist friends, Running thinks the United States may have to revisit nuclear power, which produces radioactive waste and has potential public-safety issues but a largely negligible carbon footprint. “France gets something like 60 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, and nobody even thinks of it,” he says. Coal is an option that makes climate change specialists cringe, and Running suggests it should be used only when paired with CO2 capture — injecting the carbon dioxide back into the ground. Companies already do this to build pressure in select drilling locations to enhance oil recovery. “But CO2 capture ends up costing so much energy that it may not be worth the effort,” he says. One idea to make an immediate energy-saving impact is to slow down. Running says, if the speed limit was dropped from 75 to 65 mph, most cars would get an additional 3 to 5 miles per gallon. “That can make a difference tomorrow,” he says. “I drive 65 all the time in my Prius, and people whip by me like I’m going backwards.” Corn ethanol is hot in the United States right now, but Running believes the subsidized biofuels effort in this country may not be viable over time because of the costs of plowing, planting and fertilizing. He claims a more natural biomass may work better — such as switchgrass, which farmers don’t have to intensively grow. Brazil is oil independent, running its economy on sugar-cane ethanol. Sugar cane can be cut and then regrown from the stalks, but, sadly, it’s a tropical plant that won’t grow in most of the United States. Running says a huge breakthrough would be cellulosic ethanol — finding a way to convert all the slash from logging and land-clearing activities to fuel. “Then you will have eliminated all the CO2 emissions from burning — which is one of our biggest carbon sources — and generated a fuel that can substitute for oil,” he says. “So you win double. But the technology isn’t there yet.” One person working on advances to make clean-burning ethanol a more attractive option is UM yeast biologist Frank Rosenzweig. The microbiologist and his Stanford University partners are trying to develop super yeast that would do a better job of biomass conversion — converting plant material into combustible fuels. When
brewer’s yeast ferment to make beer or wine, one of the byproducts
is alcohol, which will burn in your car. Rosenzweig imagines an energy
economy in which yeast churn out massive amounts of fuel at decentralized
“biorefineries” scattered across But to make the process competitive, yeast need to be tougher. Though they naturally generate alcohol, yeast ethanol tolerance ranges from only 10 percent to 18 percent in a vat. Above that they begin to poison themselves. Yeasts that aren’t such lightweights would make the process more efficient. In addition, fermentation in gigantic yeast reactors produces a lot of heat. Yeast ferment best between 86 and 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit, but above that they can make enough heat to kill themselves off. Chemical reactions are faster at higher temperatures, so heat-resistant yeast could enhance the process. “Right now a lot of energy at a biorefinery is lost to keeping the yeast cool,” Rosenzweig says. Another desirable trait would be yeast that can ferment five-carbon sugars. He says they are great at fermenting six-carbon sugars — found in barley, corn and sugar cane — but five-carbon sugars found in agricultural residuals such as wheat straw, corn stover or bark are off limits to them. “There are no brewer’s yeast that can ferment five-carbon sugars,” Rosenzweig says. “Interestingly, they have the genes to do this but don’t. My lab studies why this is. My Stanford colleagues have identified yeast that use five-carbon sugars to reproduce, but they don’t ferment during the process.” His lab tries to improve yeast with selective breeding. Rosenzweig says the beauty of being an evolutionary biologist working on microbes with short life cycles is that he can do an experiment in six weeks that would take 50,000 years with elephants or giraffes. He can see evolution happen. “We are one of several labs working on this,” he says, “but if we could develop yeast with ethanol tolerance, temperature tolerance and the ability to use five-carbon sugars to make ethanol — and combine those advantageous abilities in one super bug — we could really make a difference.”
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