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Earth and Atmospheric Science
Samples from the surface needed to unravel history of Mars
Geologically, Mars is very reminiscent of the moon. But it also looks a lot like the Earth. It all depends on who you ask. Current understanding of Mars’ evolution is based on spacecraft measurements and meteorite analysis. Those meteorites were ejected from Mars and traversed space before landing on Earth, where they were discovered primarily in African deserts and…
LLNL and Starris: Optimax Space Systems announce partnership for monolithic telescope technology
Starris: Optimax Space Systems and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have entered a commercialization partnership for LLNL’s patented monolithic telescope technology, which accelerates rapid deployment of modular optical designs for high-resolution or high-sensitivity space imagery. Starris has collaborated over the last decade with LLNL’s Space Program to…
Big Ideas Lab takes a closer look at NARAC
It’s been 45 years since the first emergency phone call from the Department of Energy came into Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to activate a new atmospheric modeling center that predicts the effects of hazardous plumes. Listen on Apple or Spotify. An accident had occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania on March 28, 1979, that…
LLNL’s Gauthier Deblonde selected as ‘Rising Star’
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) staff scientist Gauthier Deblonde has been named a 2024 “Rising Star“ by the American Chemical Society for his work in environmental science. Deblonde’s research as well as this year’s cohort of winners will be featured in a special issue of the American Chemical Society journal ACS Environmental Au. Deblonde’s research also…
Getting into the details of carbon accounting
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is essential for climate change mitigation, but no single standardized methodology exists for evaluating project-level net carbon removal from the atmosphere. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and collaborators from Lawrence Berkeley and National Renewable Energy national laboratories and UC Berkeley, have looked into the…
Tropical forests feel the burn of climate change
Tropical forests account for more than 50% of the global terrestrial carbon sink, but climate change threatens to alter the carbon balance of these ecosystems. New research by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and colleagues from Colorado State University and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute found that warming and drying of tropical forest…
Greenland ice sheet melted in recent past
Greenland was once actually green — even if it was close to a million years ago. But its lack of an ice sheet back then may lead to clues about the increased risk of sea-level rise in a warmer future. A new study provides the first direct evidence that the center, not just the edges, of Greenland’s ice sheet melted away in the recent geological past and the now-ice-covered…
It’s all in the accounting
Natural ecosystems can be used to offset manmade CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions that we add to the atmosphere, but the accounting needs to be right for carbon offset policies to be effective. For years, it’s been suspected that forest inventory and, more recently, biometeorological methods bias the carbon sequestration equation by potentially miscounting the…
Livermore’s research involvement in 23-year-old cold case
When local law enforcement are unable to identify skeletal remains, they may seek out external resources and capabilities like those at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (CAMS). That’s exactly what happened in 2007 when police from Newfoundland, Canada, were six years into an investigation with nothing but dead ends…
Two LLNL physicists honored for international collaboration
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) physicists Hye-Sook Park and George Swadling, along with Anna Grassi of France’s Sorbonne University and former Lawrence Fellow Frederico Fiuza of Portugal’s Técnico Lisboa, received the 2024 Lev D. Landau and Lyman Spitzer Jr. Award for Outstanding Contributions to Plasma Physics. The award is jointly sponsored by the Plasma…
Three selected as Graduate Student Research program recipients
Three graduate students have earned Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) Program awards to perform their doctoral dissertation research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The prestigious award helps cover living expenses and travel for 60 students from universities across the nation. Their proposed research projects…
A pattern of temperature change emerges from natural climate fluctuations
When comparing model simulations of Earth’s recent warming to real-world observations, differences can arise from several factors, including model errors in the simulated response to increased greenhouse gases and natural fluctuations within the climate system. Natural climate variability, also called internal variability, can change regional and global atmospheric…
Unexpected source of nutrients fuels growth of toxic algae from Lake Erie
Climate change, such as warming and changes in precipitation patterns, affects the frequency and severity of harmful algal blooms (HABs) globally, including those of toxin-producing cyanobacteria that can contaminate drinking water. These nutrient-induced blooms cause worldwide public and ecosystem health concerns. Since the mid-1990s, Lake Erie, the shallowest and warmest…
Lab study on climate sensitivity earns top notch in list of influential research
The American Geophysical Union is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its journal Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) by showcasing some of the highest-achieving papers that have been published over the past 50 years. A paper by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists is one of the winners. The paper, “Causes of Higher Climate Sensitivity in CMIP6 Models,”…
Pett-Ridge selected as a 2024 Ecological Society of America fellow
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientist and head of the Lab’s Carbon Initiative Jennifer Pett-Ridge has been selected as a fellow of the Ecological Society of America (ESA). ESA designates fellows of the society for certain members who have made outstanding contributions to a wide range of fields served by ESA. Pett-Ridge was selected for her work in soil…
Lab assists west Fresno County in clean-energy future
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) will provide technical assistance to 30 disadvantaged communities in west Fresno County to provide a future in clean-energy projects, including carbon capture and storage. The project is part of the Department of Energy’s Local Energy Action Program (LEAP) that aims to facilitate sustained community-wide economic and…
Understanding soil carbon's sensitivity to increasing global temperatures
Particulate soil carbon may be more vulnerable to microbial decomposition under warmer temperatures associated with climate change. Soil organic matter contains more carbon than plants and the atmosphere combined. Soil is increasingly considered for its potential role in climate mitigation due to its ability to sequester more carbon, but it also is critical to understand…
New technique converts excess renewable energy to natural gas
Four Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers have partnered with Los Angeles-based SoCalGas and Munich, Germany-based Electrochaea to develop an electrobioreactor to allow excess renewable electricity from wind and solar sources to be stored in chemical bonds as renewable natural gas. When renewable electricity supply exceeds demand, electric-utility…
Hard as a rock, LLNL to study geologic hydrogen production
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has received $1 million to explore technologies that stimulate hydrogen production from mineral deposits found in the subsurface, including developing our understanding of hydrogen-producing geochemical reactions and how to enhance or control the rate of hydrogen production. The use of hydrogen fuel to offset fossil fuel…
Underneath it all: building a better understanding of carbon use by soil microbes
Microbes are major drivers of carbon and nutrient fluxes in Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems; however, Earth system models used for climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies typically exclude explicit representation of soil microorganisms. A team of researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL) and…
