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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 4, NUMBER 5, MAY 1991

NEWS...
RESEARCH NEWS

Item #d91may97

U.K. Terrestrial Research: TIGER (Terrestrial Initiative in Global Environmental Research) is a new, £7 million program sponsored by the National Environmental Research Council. Key areas to be addressed through field study, laboratory experiments and computer modeling are the carbon cycle, trace greenhouse gases, and the water and energy budgets. TIGER will involve university and polytechnic research groups as well as NERC and other research institutes. Initial research proposals were due May 10, and research activity will begin this summer within the U.K. and at sites such as the Amazon rainforest and the Sahel. For information contact Program Mgr. Max Beran, Inst. Hydrology, Maclean Bldg., Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 8BB (tel: 0491-38800).

Item #d91may98

A national Global Change Center Directory is being prepared by the Center for Environmental Information (CEI) for Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Centers to be included will generally represent formal institutional coordination in support of multidisciplinary research, aimed at a broad understanding of global change as a basis for policy recommendation. Candidates for inclusion may contact Carole Beal at CEI, 46 Prince St., Rochester NY 14607 (716-271-3550).

Item #d91may99

Model evaluation: A Model Evaluation Consortium for Climate Assessment (MECCA) was recently formed to quantify in detail the reliability of projections of changes induced by greenhouse gases. Integrated analysis teams and modelers, using supercomputer facilities at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, will attempt to develop preliminary results for the June 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development. The deadline for proposals for Phase 1 (May-July, 1991) has passed. For information contact MECCA manager Charles Hakkarinen, Elec. Power Res. Inst., POB 10412, Palo Alto CA 94303 (415-855-2592).

Item #d91may100

"Buying Time in the War on Global Warming," R. Monastersky, Sci. News, p. 183, Mar. 23, 1991. Potentially controversial results from a simple climate model (see Schlesinger article, Nature, p. 219, Mar. 21 in Prof. Pubs./Gen. Interest & Policy, this Global Climate Change Digest issue--May 1991) suggest that the penalty for delaying reductions of greenhouse gas emissions is small.

Item #d91may101

"Methane's Sinks and Sources," P.J. Crutzen, Nature, p. 380, Apr. 4, 1991. The destruction rate of methane, a greenhouse gas also involved in ozone destruction, may have been overestimated by up to 25%. (See Vaghjiani article, ibid., p. 406, listed in Prof. Pubs./Gen. Interest & Policy, this Global Climate Change Digest issue--May 1991.) In this article Crutzen discusses the results and recommends a 15-20% reduction in anthropogenic sources of methane, especially landfills and fossil fuels.

Item #d91may102

"A Radical Mechanism for Methane Buildup," W. Gibbons, Sci. News, p. 116, Feb. 23, 1991. Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have concluded that rising levels of methane in the atmosphere may result from a depletion of hydroxyl radical at twice the rate previously thought. This article presents critical views on the results, announced so far only by press release, from other atmospheric chemists.

Item #d91may103

"Gas Dispersion Method May Give Clue to Effects of CO₂ on Biomass," J. Haggin, Chem. Eng. News, pp. 29-31, Apr. 1, 1991. Brookhaven National Laboratory's Free Air Controlled Experiment (FACE) program has been developing a system for exposing vegetation to controlled amounts of atmospheric gases in the field, under otherwise natural growing conditions. This article describes the system and the importance of understanding interactions between the atmospheric and terrestrial carbon pools. Tests on cotton plants show that CO₂ enrichment produced 50% more biomass and crop maturity five weeks earlier than normal, although damage from insects was greater--results that could not have been determined from previous enclosed-chamber experiments.

Item #d91may104

"New Study of Forest Response to CO₂ Underway," Environ. Update (Elec. Power Res. Inst.), p. 3, Apr. 1991. In 1990 EPRI began a program using open-top chambers to determine the long-term responses of plants and trees to elevated CO₂. Five-year experiments at Desert Research Institute and Duke University are focusing on ponderosa pine and loblolly pine, both commercially important timber species.