Ecological responses to climate change in eastern forests

"Ecological responses to climate change in eastern forests: modeling distributional changes in tree and wildlife species." Dr. Stephen N. Matthews

http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/atlas

Naturopathic metabolic typing

In order of importance:

• Electrolyte balance: Thomas M. Riddick "Control of colloid stability through zeta potential"

• Anabolic/catabolic: Dr Emanuel Revici “Research in Pathophysiology as the Basis for Guided Chemotherapy with Special Emphasis on Cancer

• Glucogenic-ketogenic: George Watson "Nutrition and your mind: the psychochemical response"

• Autonomic nervous system: Dr Francis Pottenger and Dr. Lowe

• Acid-base balance Dr Guy Schenker

Summer 2010 (strong La Nina)

For a global perspective, see http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2010summer/

Fires in Borneo track El Nino

In the year 2000, about 36.8Mha of Kaliman-
tan were under timber concession licenses. Production
and conversion forests were generally more affected
than the limited production forests and also showed
much higher impacts during El Nin ˜o years with 10.0%
and 10.6%, respectively, in comparison with 2.8% for the
limited production forests. While 67.6% of the area of
Kalimantan is timber concession, about 77.4% of the
total fire-affected area over the whole period was
located in these concessions. This number rose to
80.9% in El Nin ˜o years.

LANGNER, ANDREAS; SIEGERT, FLORIAN Spatiotemporal fire occurrence in Borneo over a period of 10 years. Global Change Biology. 2009.

On track for increased solar activity

Earth Observatory.

Jung, Koch and Quentell

How efficient are plants? (part II)

Insolation at Earth's surface (the total solar irradiance, in units of W/m2):

On sunny days, about 1 kilowatt of solar radiation bathes every square meter of the earth's surface every hour. Because of the seasons and weather, the annual average for much of the united states is between 1/2 and 1/3 of this ideal "clear sky" condition.

Photosynthetically Active Radiation, or PAR, is only ~40% of that total, depending on which chlorophyll molecules are present in the plant. Because of physiological requirements, plants actually use an order of magnitude less, usually about 2% of total solar insolation. Of that, orders of magnitude less are available for conversion into biomass. Contrast that with commercial solar arrays that can capture about 20% of the energy in solar radiation!

Either way, the rest of that kW is either reflected or converted to heat...and heat makes the wind blow. A 20mph wind contains enough energy to generate 1 kilowatt per square meter for every hour it blows.

references: http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~brooksdr/DRB_web_page/papers/UsingTheSun/using.htm

Ship Pollution

Large ships continue to use old, polluting diesel engines, with disasterous health effects for people living close to the ocean. The EPA's proposed plan would greatly alleviate this largely unregulated source of pollution, which is currently equal to about 120 coal power plants running continuously in our nation's harbors and waterways. (source: President's Cancer Commission report, 2010)

EPA Website on large ship pollution.

Interestingly, ships also affect cloud formation: the soot in their exhaust creates nuclei for water droplets to condense and form clouds: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=44517

Do Trees Pollute?

Plants produce VOCs as part of normal respiration. These, along with anthropogenic VOCs can produce ozone smog in the lower atmosphere.

In the South, pine plantations used for their fast-growing supplies of timber have proven to be havens for sweetgum trees, which are major producers of VOCs. Indeed, virtually every tree that grows fast -- a desirable quality for forestry production -- is a heavy emitter of VOCs.

"It's just one of those biological correlations," said Purves. "What you want is a fast-growing tree that doesn't produce a lot of VOCs, but that doesn't seem to exist."

http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/04/q3/0927-trees.htm

The debate continues: "... trees were reported to contribute to ozone formation. This misleading fact contains only part of the truth. Most trees do emit biogenic VOCs such as isoprene and monoterpenes which can contribute to the formation of ozone and carbon monoxide. The other side of this story is that in areas with low nitrogen oxide concentrations, such as more rural areas, VOCs are believed to remove ozone. Additionally, since trees lower air temperature, the net effect of increased trees in urban areas is an overall lowering of VOC emissions and therefore ozone formation.

Trees in urban areas require energy inputs for planting, maintaining and removing. Because we burn fossil fuels (which emit CO2, SO2, N, CO and VOCs) in all these activities, we also need to factor that into the Trees + Air equation. In this case, it tips the scale a bit to the net loss side… but not for long!"

http://ecology.com/features/trees-air-quality/trees-clean-air.html

How efficient are plants? (part I)

Annual net primary production (g C m-2 yr-1) estimated as the average of all model estimates:

In order to answer how efficient plants are at converting solar energy into chemical energy, we can look at how much energy is in sunlight and how it is used in photosynthesis.

The surface of the Earth receives 8,000 to 10,000 kilocalories (kcal) of energy from the sun each day on each square meter of surface during the growing season.

A kcal is what most people call a calorie (you're supposed to eat 2,000 a day) and is defined as the amount of heat needed to warm 1 kg of water 1 degree Celsius (°C). Indeed, most (~95%) of this solar energy is used up heating the surroundings and evaporating water, while a paltry ~2% is used for photosynthesis (3% is reflected).

So out of 10,000 kcal only 2% or 200 kcal are available to a one square meter plant per day. If the growing season is 150 days, Gross Primary Productivity should be on the order of 30,000 kCal per year. However, at least half of this is lost by cellular respiration as the plants run their own metabolism. Also, C3 plants respire CO2 at high temperature and sunlight because the protein machinery can "run backwards" (C4 plants minimize these losses to "photorespiration"). Because of other inefficiencies, the Net Productivity is always lower:

Estimated Net Productivity of Certain Ecosystems (in kilocalories/m2/year)
Temperate deciduous forest	5,000
Tropical rain forest	15,000
Tall-grass prairie	2,000
Desert	500
Coastal marsh	12,000
Ocean close to shore	2,500
Open ocean	800
Clear (oligotrophic) lake	800
Lake in advanced state of eutrophication	2,400
Silver Springs, Florida	8,800
Field of alfalfa (lucerne)	15,000
Corn (maize) field, U.S.	4,500
Rice paddies, Japan	5,500
Lawn, Washington, D.C.	6,800
Sugar cane, Hawaii	25,000

Note that even the most efficient crops store about half of

At these efficiencies it would take 144 square meters of temperate forest to supply the 720,000 kcal an average adult needs to survive a year, but just 28 square meters of sugar cane in Hawaii, assuming we could eat all the calories produced in a forest or live entirely on sugar. These areas are about the size of a small house and a bedroom, respectively. (1 sq meter = 10.7 sq feet)

The graph at the top of this post shows that the average productivity is about 1 kg per square meter per year. This makes sense because a gram of whole plant biomass yields about 4.25 kcal, so 1kg of plant matter per square meter yields 4,250 kcals of energy.

sources: http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/N/NetProductivity.html
note: these estimated values are different, though of the same magnitude, from other sources.

A map of which input is most limiting across terrestrial biomes:  temperature, sunlight, or water.