Carbon study on the prairie has global implications

A data monitoring system collects ecological information for modeling global carbon cycles.

Researchers from Argonne National Laboratory often work at Fermilab, but some never set foot inside a building. Led by principal investigator Roser Matamala, a group of Argonne ecosystem specialists uses high-tech monitoring equipment to measure the carbon consumption of different plant types on Fermilab grounds. Since the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere contributes to global warming, these measurements offer clues on the role of plants in helping to offset human carbon emissions.

Fermilab is one of seven designated DOE National Environmental Research Parks, which provide protected natural areas for ecologists to study the forces of nature. The broad range of ecosystems available at Fermilab makes the place an ideal study site. Since July 2005, the Argonne researchers have measured water vapor, heat, and gas exchange within two sites: restored prairie and cultivated prairie. "The Fermilab restored prairie has given us two years of wonderful data so far," said Matamala.

In January, the group began monitoring a third site, this one within the dog training area. Powered by solar energy, the equipment monitors what ecologists call a monoculture: an ecosystem with only one type of plant. The switchgrass covering this pasture has recently become desirable for its use in ethanol fuel. The data gathered at Fermilab, however, may corroborate a growing opinion that high-diversity plant cultures are more environment-friendly because they can produce more biofuel and sequester more carbon than monocultures.

The information gathered by Matamala's team is incorporated within Ameriflux, an international network of researchers monitoring carbon flux at more than 100 different sites across the Americas. "The overlying purpose is to figure out which ecosystems do the best job of grabbing carbon from the atmosphere," said Fermilab ecologist Rod Walton. Ameriflux and other worldwide experiments provide the data to inform policy guidelines such as the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, issued February 2. "If we know how different these processes are -- from a desert in Utah to forests in Amazonia -- we can integrate the data over different ecosystems," said Matamala. "We can predict what the climate will look like in 70 or 100 years."

Read the previous Fermilab Today article about Matamala's research.

--Christine Buckley

What is it? This photo that ran in Friday's issue didn't stymie the engineers and technicians who regularly work with this instrument: Fermilab Today received many correct guesses. "This external proton beam magnet was going to be installed in the MTest beamline and was not leak-tight," wrote AD's Christine Ader, who submitted the photo. The round object in the photo is an inspection mirror, positioned to display a crack in the beam tube. "This particular magnet was an EPB Dipole," Ader explained, "and at some point, beam had scraped the inside of the beam-tube and led to the crack shown in the mirror."

From Innovations Report,
March 16, 2007:

UK teachers set to experience physics up close

A group of physics teachers from the UK will get to see cutting edge physics research in action when they visit CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, in Geneva this week.

The UK delegation of 14 will take part in the Physics Teachers @CERN event (15th -18th March) which attracts teaching staff from across Europe. The event, which takes place during National Science and Engineering Week, provides the teachers with the opportunity to network and share ideas with their national and European counterparts. They will be given an insight to contemporary particle physics at CERN, visit some of the experimental facilities and find out more about how spinoffs from particle physics can impact on our every day lives.