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CC2.0 Special Event: Don DePaolo Talk1 min read

by ESD News and Events on November 9, 2011

Announcements Climate & Carbon Sciences Program Area Climate Sciences Department Ecology Department Energy Resources Program Area Environmental Remediation & Water Resources Program Events Fundamental Earth Sciences Program Area Geochemistry Department Geologic Carbon Sequestration Program Geophysics Department Hydrogeology Department Nuclear Energy & Waste Program

Source:  Dan Hawkes

Nov. 10, 2–3 p.m., Building 50 Auditorium

Carboncycle2_0

In a Carbon Cycle 2.0 Special Event—on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2–3 p.m., Building 50 Auditorium—ESD Director Donald J. DePaolo talks about the link between climate change and the “carbon cycle change”: the fact that Earth’s carbon cycles have undergone revolutionary change, entirely due to human burning of fossil fuels and removal of forests.

The root cause of climate change is what could be called “carbon cycle change.” To change global climate, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere needs to change, which in turn requires a change in the way carbon is moved around among the various forms and places it exists in and on the Earth. If one looks backward millions of years into deep geologic time, and compares the Earth to other planets like Venus, it is possible to grasp how carbon can be moved in and out of planetary interiors, and how natural cycles have acted to regulate the Earth’s surface temperature. These natural geologic processes have produced large changes in the amount of atmospheric CO2 in the geologic past, but they act extremely slowly. In the past 100 years Earth’s carbon cycles have undergone revolutionary change, and there is no doubt that these changes have been produced entirely by burning of fossil fuel and removal of forests. Today, 98 to 99% of the net movement of carbon out of geologic reservoirs into the atmosphere is due to human activities. Whether you think this is a problem or not, it is nevertheless a fact that we are currently doing something that is unprecedented in Earth history.

News & Events

Study Sheds Light on Microbial Communities in Earth’s Subsurface2 min read

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  From the tops of tree canopies to the bottom of groundwater reservoirs, a vast amount of living organisms interact with nonliving components such as rock, water, and soil to shape this area of Earth known as the “critical zone.” Over half of Earth’s microbes are located in the subsurface critical zone, which ranges from…

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DOE Funds Projects to Advance Forest Carbon Dioxide Removal Efforts and Agricultural Soil Carbon Conservation4 min read

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The DOE Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) and Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) recently announced $5 million in funding for four projects–two from Berkeley Lab with EESA leadership. The projects selected offer “promising solutions” to the nation’s climate change challenges by helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and will “accelerate their deployment…

Quantifying the strength of the land carbon sink3 min read

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This article first appeared at nature.berkeley.edu/news. The world’s forests, grasslands, and other terrestrial ecosystems have played a substantial role in offsetting human carbon emissions—a capability that UC Berkeley researchers say would be threatened by continued global change. The assessment, published today as a new review paper in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, presents a comprehensive analysis of…

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