See on Scoop.it – Green & Sustainable News

China’s demand for coal continues to rise, but the parched country faces challenging finding enough water to cool its coal-fired power plants

Extreme contrasts between warm, moist air, and cold dry air, make for rapid and dramatic change in the environment of coastal Greenland, as evidenced in this mysterious fog effect over Sisimiut.

Meltfactor: Jason Box’s blog:

Surface reflectivity of sunlight is called “albedo”. Albedo is a Latin-based word referring to whiteness. The higher the albedo, the more sunlight can be reflected. As albedo decreases, more sunlight can be absorbed.

The absorption of sunlight is the largest single source of melt energy on the Greenland ice sheet.

Surface albedo across Greenland is mapped using data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite-borne sensors. Before melting is underway, albedo is above 80%.

FromThe Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (Paul Shockley):

Coming off one of the driest Junes on record for Grand Junction, there are dim prospects for change for the beginning of July, according to the National Weather Service in Grand Junction. As measured at Grand Junction Regional Airport, the city recorded 0.01 inch of rain for the month just ended, well below a normal value for June of 0.45 inch, National Weather Service senior forecaster Chris Cuoco said. “We’re certainly down there for one of the driest June’s on record,” Cuoco said. “(Saturday) had some of the first raindrops I’ve felt in the valley in quite a long time.”

As dry as the past month registered, June 2012 recorded trace amounts of rain, he said. Don’t look for change anytime soon. “We have the slightest hint of precipitation for July 7 and July 8, but certainly it’s not something we’re banking…

Christoph Kessel, Nutrition (Horticulture) – Program Lead, OMAF & MRA

Keeping fertigated nitrate-nitrogen in the crop rooting zone is an important management strategy to ensure maximum uptake.  Nitrate-nitrogen is very mobile in the soil.  It can move with water out of the rooting zone and down through the soil profile.

The timing of the nitrate-nitrogen fertilizer injection during the irrigation event is key to keeping it in the rooting zone and available to plants.  Inject it too early and nitrate nitrogen can move beyond the rooting zone; injecting it too late means higher concentrations around emitters and uneven distribution in the root zone.

California researchers studied nitrate-nitrogen distribution from subsurface and surface drip systems in different soil textures¹.  The fertilizer was injected either at the beginning, middle or end of the irrigation event.

Their observations, shown in the figures below, demonstrate three important points to keep in mind…

Food Security: Nine principles that promote it

A very interesting article in Grist by Dr. Vandana Shiva about the food security of the world and the forces that control it was followed by a revealing exchange of comments between a big corporation executive and environmentalists and sustainable agriculture advocates.

http://grist.org/sustainable-food/dr-vandana-shiva-occupy-our-food-supply/?fb_ref=fbrw

I felt there were so many issues being thrown around (including a very disturbing suggestion that overpopulated poor countries should simply let a portion of their population starve out to restore the natural balance as per their food production/distribution capacity), that I thought of some broad principles (common sense stuff) that could help us think about where we actually want to go.

Granted, I’m not an expert in food security but I am passionate about it. Yes, so many nations don’t have it, and their policy makers seem barely aware of it. So, we the people, could start to move…

One idea for the blog is to explain some of the general methods, geophysical and hydrologic ones. Maybe you will be interested, but its definitely also a good exercise for me to reiterate and structure my thoughts.

So stay tuned for some concepts.

When I mention “groundwater,” the first thing you’re likely to imagine is a well for drinking water.  Most people know that you can stick a well in the ground and get water from it, but often never think about what that groundwater is doing before it gets to our wells.  A wise hydrologist once told me, “People never notice groundwater until there’s a problem with it.”  Generally, these problems involve water contamination (think Erin Brockovich), but just to show you that this isn’t always the case, I want to share an interesting story about an underground building doomed to an endless war with water.

First, though, I’ll start with a quick debrief on hydrology basics to get everyone on the same page.  At a certain depth below the land surface, the bedrock becomes saturated with water – this level is called the water table.  The saturated rock or material through…

Read at :

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130609195713.htm

How Do You Feed Nine Billion People?

June 9, 2013 — An international team of scientists has developed crop models to better forecast food production to feed a growing population — projected to reach 9 billion by mid-century — in the face of climate change.

In a paper appearing in Nature Climate Change, members of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project unveiled an all-encompassing modeling system that integrates multiple crop simulations with improved climate change models. AgMIP’s effort has produced new knowledge that better predicts global wheat yields while reducing political and socio-economic influences that can skew data and planning efforts, said Bruno Basso, Michigan State University ecosystem scientist and AgMIP member.

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