What can ice reveal about fire?

Carbon monoxide trapped in ice cores reveals unexpected trends regarding burning biomass

2010-12-04

(Press-News.org) Scientists studying a column of Antarctic ice spanning 650 years have found evidence for fluctuations in biomass burning--the consumption of wood, peat and other materials in wildfires, cooking fires and communal fires--in the Southern Hemisphere.

The record, focused primarily on carbon monoxide (CO), differs substantially from the record in the Northern Hemisphere, suggesting changes may be necessary for several leading climate models.

The research appears in Science on Dec. 2, 2010, in an early online release.

The scientists studied variations in stable (non-radioactive, non-decaying) isotopes of carbon and oxygen, the first such measurements for carbon monoxide collected from ice-core samples.

"Combined with concentration measurements of CO, this record allows us to constrain the relative strength of biomass burning activity over the 650-year period in the Southern Hemisphere," said co-author and research lead John Mak, a geoscientist at SUNY Stony Brook.

"What we find is that the amount of biomass burning has changed significantly over that time period," Mak added, "and that biomass burning was in fact a significant source of CO during pre-industrial times."

The biomass burning trends indicated by the CO largely agree with Southern Hemisphere records tracking charcoal particles in sediments and with measurements of methane from trapped ice.

Unexpectedly, the researchers found that biomass burning appears to have been more prevalent 100 to 150 years ago than it was during the 20th century.

"While this is consistent with previous findings," added Mak, "there is still a common mis-perception that biomass burning rates are much higher today than in the past. This is significant since many researchers assume that human-induced biomass burning is much greater than 'naturally' occurring biomass burning. While this may still be the case--there were people around in the 18th century--the fact that today's rates of [Southern Hemisphere] biomass burning seem to be lower than one to two centuries ago calls for a re-evaluation of sources."

INFORMATION:

The research was supported by NSF grant OCE-0731406.

The full reference for the paper is: Z. Wang, J. Chappellaz, K. Park, J.E. Mak, "Large variations in Southern Hemisphere biomass burning during the last 650 years", Science, Dec. 2, 2010.

[Attachments] See images for this press release:

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

New report summarizes key themes in American doctoral education

2010-12-04

A new report recently released by the National Science Foundation, titled "Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities: 2009," presents a statistical overview of the U.S. doctoral education system in snapshots and long-term trends. It notes the American system of doctoral education is widely considered the world's best, as evidenced by the large number of international students who choose to pursue a doctorate at U.S. universities. But this status is subject to the many factors that shape U.S. doctoral education. "Given the increased global engagement and economic prosperity ...

Researchers create high performance infrared camera based on type-II InAs/GaSb superlattices

2010-12-04

Researchers at Northwestern University have created a new infrared camera based on Type-II InAs/GaSb superlattices that produces much higher resolution images than previous infrared cameras. Created by Manijeh Razeghi, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and researchers in the Center for Quantum Devices in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, the long wavelength infrared focal plane array camera provides a 16-fold increase in the number of pixels in the image and can provide infrared images in the dark. Their ...

Researchers create new high-performance fiber

2010-12-04

Researchers at Northwestern University have nanoengineered a new kind of fiber that could be tougher than Kevlar. Working in a multidisciplinary team that includes groups from other universities and the MER Corporation, Horacio Espinosa, James N. and Nancy J. Farley Professor in Manufacturing & Entrepreneurship at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, and his group have created a high performance fiber from carbon nanotubes and a polymer that is remarkably tough, strong, and resistant to failure. Using state-of-the-art in-situ electron microscopy testing ...

The gene-environment enigma

2010-12-04

Personalized medicine centers on being able to predict the risk of disease or response to a drug based on a person's genetic makeup. But a study by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that, for most common diseases, genes alone only tell part of the story. That's because the environment interacts with DNA in ways that are difficult to predict, even in simple organisms like single-celled yeast, their research shows. "The effects of a person's genes – and, therefore, their risk of disease – are greatly influenced by their environment," ...

Preventing physician medication mix-ups by reporting them

2010-12-04

INDIANAPOLIS – The most frequent contributors to medication errors and adverse drug events in busy primary care practice offices are communication problems and lack of knowledge, according to a study of a prototype web-based medication error and adverse drug event reporting system. Research on the use of MEADERS (Medication Error and Adverse Drug Event Reporting System), developed by investigators from the Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Medicine led by Atif Zafar, M.D., appears in the November/December 2010 issue of the Annals of Family Medicine. "We ...

Albert Einstein College of Medicine helps address need for improved cancer care in rural America

2010-12-04

December 2, 2010 – (BRONX, NY) – Nearly a quarter of Americans live in rural areas, which consistently report higher cancer mortality rates than urban and suburban areas. Among the complex causes for this disparity is that only 10 percent of physicians practice in rural areas and almost 4 out of 10 rural residents live at least an hour from an urban area. Finding the time, transportation, and financial resources for travel to urban academic medical centers, the standard bearers for quality cancer care, often proves difficult. Most rural residents have their cancer treated ...

New clue in leukemia mystery: Researchers identify 'poison' employed by deadly enzyme mutations

2010-12-04

NEW YORK (Dec. 2, 2010) -- There is new hope for people with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), a fast-growing cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Research led by Weill Cornell Medical College and published today in the online edition of the journal Cancer Cell reveals a surprising and unexpected cancer-causing mechanism. The investigators discovered that newly identified mutant enzymes in AML create a chemical poison to cause leukemia. Their findings should prove useful in treating patients by providing a molecular target against which to develop new drugs against one ...

Effect of 6 mT SMF on phagocytosis depends on macrophage differentiation degree

2010-12-04

The interest in the biological effects of non-ionizing Electro Magnetic Fields (EMFs) and Static Magnetic Fields (SMFs) on the whole organism, as well on cellular systems, has noticeably increased in recent years in consideration of their increased production (from the generation and transmission of electricity, to domestic appliances and industrial equipment, to telecommunications and broadcasting) and the possible health risk for humans. About one century ago, associated with the wide use of electricity, artificial electric and magnetic fields became a part of our living ...

VCU Massey discovery could lead to breakthrough for non-small cell lung cancer

2010-12-04

Richmond, Va. (Dec. 3, 2010) – Research at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center led by Charles E. Chalfant, Ph.D., associate professor of biochemistry and molecular Biology, discovered a previously unknown mechanism in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells that contributes to their ability to maintain and grow tumors. Narrowing in on this mechanism could provide a breakthrough for the development of effective therapies for NSCLC and other cancers. The findings, recently published in Journal of Clinical Investigation, provide the first example of a ...

Fear of being envied makes people behave well toward others

2010-12-04

It's nice to have success—but it can also make you worry that the jealous people will try to bring you down. New research in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, has found that the fear of being the target of malicious envy makes people act more helpfully toward people who they think might be jealous of them. In previous research, Niels van de Ven of Tilburg University and his colleagues Marcel Zeelenberg and Rik Pieters had figured out that envy actually comes in two flavors: benign envy and malicious envy. They studied people ...

What can ice reveal about fire?

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: