Climate Change

If fossil fuel emissions continue their upward course, the land and oceans will eventually exceed their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, according to a new and improved computer climate model. The model, one in the first generation to include the Earth's carbon cycle, indicates that vegetation and the oceans can only absorb so much carbon dioxide before they top out and become less efficient at removing carbon from the atmosphere.

Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 2004, is on a mission: challenging scientists to find environmentally friendly energy alternatives to fossil fuels. Here, Chu discusses the future of the world's fuel supply, what termite guts and manure piles can teach us, and why we shouldn't be writing off nuclear energy.

A study of deep-rooted trees in the Amazon shows that they don't simply suck in carbon and spew out water vapor. The roots actually store water deep underground in the rainy season and bring it up to the surface in dry periods, thereby boosting photosynthesis and carbon uptake beyond expected levels during the dry season.

A new report led by UC Berkeley researchers finds that just eight policy strategies can take California halfway to the greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets established by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005 while increasing the Gross State Product by approximately $60 billion and creating more than 20,000 new jobs.

Top climate scientists from China and the United States will gather May 23-24 with policymakers, Nobel laureates, think tank officials, business representatives, members of the media and others at the University of California, Berkeley, to explore how the world's two biggest producers of greenhouse gas emissions can address global warming and minimize its impacts on the planet.

While climate models predict significant global warming by the end of the century, these models don't take into account several poorly understood processes that will amplify the warming. Two UC Berkeley and LBNL researchers estimated this effect from past warming cycles and came up with temperatues 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit higher than today's climate models predict.

Forty-three top economists from across California are delivering a letter today, Monday, June 26, to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Legislature urging them to move quickly to control greenhouse gas emissions.

Next week, the ASUC Senate will consider placing a referendum on the spring ballot for a student fee increase called The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF). The proposed $5 fee per semester fee would go to projects addressing "UC Berkeley's environmental sustainability and the impact on global climate change," the referendum states.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) made a rare visit to the Berkeley campus Friday, Feb. 23, to promote what she called "a practical, achievable, and sustainable regimen" to combat global climate change, beginning with a package of five bills she has either introduced in the Senate or plans to offer in the near future.

As climate change and energy policy move to center stage, the UC Berkeley NewsCenter asks students whether global warming is a major worry for them.