CGC News Archive

NEWS

CGC issues RFP for new working group proposals
The Center on Global Change (CGC) is soliciting proposals from Duke faculty to establish innovative collaborations in all aspects of global change science, policy, and education. Proposals can include working groups, workshops, symposia, or other activities. Priority will be given to activities with a clear description of scientific advancement and plans for submission of large-scale proposals to agencies or foundations. Proposals to CGC are due April 15, 2009, with projects to begin during the FY09/10 fiscal year.
Complete RFP here >

ConocoPhillips Pledges $1 Million to Climate Change Policy Partnership

May 9, 2007 Durham, NC — ConocoPhillips, the third-largest integrated energy company in the United States, has pledged $1 million to support an industry-university collaboration working to develop policies that address global climate change, Duke University President Richard H. Brodhead announced Wednesday.

The Climate Change Policy Partnership (CCPP) is a four-year initiative launched last year by Duke University and Duke Energy to pool the expertise of the university’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, and Center on Global Change with other concerned partners in the corporate and academic worlds.

“There are few issues today more critical than global climate change, which is why it is vital for our government, corporate and environmental leaders to possess unbiased data and analyses in order to make informed decisions. Providing that type of impartial information is the aim of the partnership,” Brodhead said. “We welcome ConocoPhillips’ support of this effort, which exemplifies Duke’s larger mission of generating and sharing knowledge to serve society.”

ConocoPhillips’ gift will support research and policy analysis on a range of issues critical to climate change and energy.

“ConocoPhillips welcomes the opportunity to participate in Duke University’s Climate Change Policy Partnership,” said Phil Frederickson, executive vice president of Planning, Strategy and Corporate Affairs for ConocoPhillips. “We believe the partnership will play an important role in devising practical, equitable and cost-effective approaches to addressing global climate change issues.”

Tim Profeta, director of Duke’s Nicholas Institute, said, “ConocoPhillips shares a common conviction with Duke University and its partners that the purpose of this partnership must be to apply, not merely accrue, knowledge. Providing decision-makers with factual, timely counsel, free of political spin, is critical.”

The CCPP will expand its focus as it adds new partners from the nation’s agricultural and financial services industries. International packaging company MeadWestvaco joined the partnership earlier this year.

“We are eager for other partners to join us in this endeavor,” said Robert B. Jackson, director of Duke’s Center on Global Change. “A viable policy to address global climate change must encourage reduced carbon emissions from all sources and segments of the economy, not just a few.”

Press Release >

CGC working group headed by Dan Richter publishes soil synthesis

The Global Soil Change working group, headed by Dan Richter has published a synthesis of their work on long-term soil experiments in the March-April 2007 issue of Soil Science Society of America Journal.
Full reprint >

MeadWestvaco Pledges $1 Million to Climate Change Policy Partnership

February 17, 2007 Durham, NC — Global packaging company MeadWestvaco Corporation has pledged $1 million to support an industry-university collaboration that is working to develop policies to address the problems of global climate change, Duke University President Richard H. Brodhead announced Monday.

The Climate Change Policy Partnership (CCPP) is a four-year initiative that was launched last year by Duke University and Duke Energy to pool the expertise of the university’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, and Center on Global Change with other concerned partners in the corporate and academic worlds.

“The partnership seeks to provide unbiased data and analyses on climate change to government, corporate and environmental leaders,” Brodhead said. “We welcome MeadWestvaco’s support of this effort, which exemplifies Duke’s larger mission of generating and sharing knowledge to serve society.”

MeadWestvaco’s gift will support research and policy analysis on a range of critical issues relating to the impact of climate change on forest resources.

“MeadWestvaco has long believed in sustainable business practices and is committed to learning and sharpening our own strategies for addressing climate change,” said Mark T. Watkins Sr., vice president of technology and forestry at MeadWestvaco. “Our goal is to make a meaningful, positive impact through our actions as a leading global packaging company as well as influence broader climate change policies.”

Tim Profeta, director of the Nicholas Institute, said, “MeadWestvaco shares a common conviction with Duke and its partners that the purpose of the CCPP must be to apply, not merely accrue, knowledge. Providing decision-makers with factual, timely counsel, free of political spin, is critical.”

The CCPP will expand its focus as it adds new partners from the nation’s agricultural and financial services industries.

“We are eager for other partners to join us in this endeavor,” said Robert B. Jackson, director of Duke’s Center on Global Change. “A viable policy to address global climate change must encourage reduced carbon emissions from, and adaptation by, all sources and segments of the economy, not just a few.”

Press Release >

Working paper "Carbon Capture, Pipeline and Storage: A Viable Option for North Carolina Utilities?" released

March 29, 2007 Durham, NC — A new study by environmental economists at Duke University finds that it may be economically feasible to capture greenhouse gas emissions from coal-powered electric utilities in North Carolina and transport them, via a pipeline, into underground storage reservoirs in the Appalachian Basin and Gulf Coast regions.

The study, which was prepared by Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and its Center on Global Change, examines the potential for capturing and storing carbon-dioxide emissions from coal-powered electric plants in North Carolina using two widely touted, “clean coal” technologies: supercritical pulverized coal (SPC) and integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC).

“Within the next decade, utilities plan to construct new coal-based generation plants in North Carolina,” said lead author Eric L. Williams, project director for economic analysis at the Nicholas Institute. “This study shows that carbon capture and sequestration investment can be economically viable even in a state that does not have geological sequestration capacity.”

The working paper that summarizes conclusions from the study is available online here: Carbon Capture, Pipeline and Storage: A Viable Option for North Carolina Utilities?

Syngenta Crop Protection Supports Duke Climate Change Research

August 2006, North Carolina — Syngenta Crop Protection, one of the world's largest agribusiness companies, committed funding to Duke University's Center On Global Change and Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences to study climate change and agricultural production. The multiyear funding, seeded by an initial gift of $25,000, will support research projects that investigate a range of issues related to the effects of climate change on crop production, carbon sequestration in agricultural soils, and adaptive production practices by U.S. farmers.

The decision by Syngenta to support climate change research is significant in that it represents the first initiative dedicated to research on agriculture and climate change at Duke University. "Every scenario for atmospheric warming will have ramifications for our food and fiber production systems," stated Dr. Rob Jackson, Director of the CGC. "We're very pleased that Syngenta decided to support research at Duke to investigate options and opportunities for farmers facing the impacts of climate change."

With North American headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina, Syngenta Crop Protection offers a comprehensive portfolio of products designed to increase productivity and profitability for farmers and ranchers. Syngenta partners with stakeholders across the entire food production system on environmental stewardship programs at the national, regional and local level. "Syngenta actively encourages the adoption of sustainable agriculture as part of integrated farming systems," said Dr. Gary Dickson, Vice President at Syngenta. "It is socially responsible and makes good business sense to consider how farmers will sustain food production and the environment under new conditions brought about by increases in global temperatures."

For more information about Syngenta, go to www.syngenta.com.
 

CGC WORKING GROUP HEADED BY DAN RICHTER LANDS NSF RESEARCH COORDINATION NETWORK GRANT

The Global Soil Change working group, headed by Dan Richter, will receive a 5 year, $425K grant from the National Science Foundation's Research Coordination Network to support long-term soil experiments and chronosequence studies.

Proposal Summary:

Long-term measurements of weather, floods, water quality, human health, wildlife populations, earthquakes, and air pollution are highly valued. Regrettably, there are no analogous networks of observations of the earth's soil. The Earth's soil is today changing rapidly, driven largely by human impact, and remarkably little is understood about its rate and processes of change. A network of soil observation sites could inform scientists and the public alike, not only about soil, but also about how soil affects the quality of the atmosphere, water resources, and ecosystems themselves. We therefore propose to establish an RCN among scientists, students, and teachers, who have experience with the two main scientific approaches to estimating soil change: long-term soil experiments (LTSEs) and chronosequence studies. The intellectual goal is to synthesize and critically evaluate the science of soil change, and to promote new research across sites currently used for LTSEs and chronosequence studies. The goal for broader impact is to stimulate scientific community development (both in terms of scientific discipline and in diversity of individuals), as well as much greater interest in the study and appreciation for the changing soil of planet Earth.

To accomplish these goals, two active projects will be combined which for several years have been operating in parallel: the Long-Term Soil Experiment Networking Project and the Weathering Systems Sciences Consortium (WSSC). This proposed RCN will be called the Global Soil Change Community, and it will build upon much of the work of LTSE Project and WSSC by promoting greater use of long-term soil experiments and chronosequence studies throughout the world. This will be accomplished with annual workshops and papers, but especially through a competitive program for undergraduate and graduate students and post-docs, as well as for teachers. Drupal.org, a website content management system (CMS), will help us unite all these groups and others (including the general public and under-represented groups as well) with a community website that is remarkably open to all. By the end of the project, a CMS should include not only website-driven inventories of LTSEs and chronosequence studies but data bases of soil property and process data that can be used to run models.

These collaborations will significantly advance the interaction among soil-change research sites and significantly enhance our understanding of the rate and processes of soil biogeochemical change.

CGC TO HOST SOUTHEASTERN CENTER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH
The Center on Global Change has been chosen to administer one of four regional centers for the U.S. Department of Energy’s new National Institute for Climate Change Research (NICCR, pronounced "nicer"). NICCR will fund research nationwide on the effects of climate change on ecosystems and the atmosphere. The CGC has been awarded a $1 million grant to host the Southeastern Center, which will distribute about $10 million to universities and other institutions in the Southeast for climate change research during the next five years. As the Southeastern host, the CGC will help set research priorities for the region as well as nationally, and will be responsible for coordinating NICCR-sponsored research studies in the region.
NICCR News Release >
NICCR Southeastern Region website >

TREE PLANTATIONS WORKING GROUP PUBLISHES PAPER IN SCIENCE
In 2003 - 2004 the Center on Global Change funded a Working Group proposal for "Assessing Carbon Sinks and Other Biogeochemical Changes with Plantations: A Global Synthesis." This Working Group investigated environmental interactions resulting from creating tree plantations for carbon sequestration. Research that began in this Working Group led to the recent publication of Trading Water for Carbon with Biological Carbon Sequestration in the December 23, 2005 issue of Science.
Duke News Release >

OCEAN CLIMATE WORKING GROUP PUBLISHES PAPER IN NATURE
The Ocean Climate Modeling Working Group, funded by the CGC in the Spring of 2003, examined how ocean biology and physics respond to climate perturbation. Research ideas that began in this working group led to the recent publication of The effect of advection on the nutrient reservoir in the North Atlantic subtropical gyre in the September 29, 2005 issue of Nature.

CGC AWARDED BIOCOMPLEXITY GRANT
The Center on Global Change has been awarded a $1.2 million “Biocomplexity in the Environment” grant by NSF. This five-year project will investigate large-scale, long-term coastal environmental change along the U.S. Southeast and Gulf Coasts. The research team, led by Brad Murray of Duke’s Earth and Ocean Sciences Division, will develop a fully coupled human-natural modeling system that will incorporate both human manipulations of the coast, especially actions to stabilize the shoreline position, and large-scale wave-driven sediment transport. The resulting coupled model will allow investigations of the response of sandy coastlines to altered storm and wave patterns, accelerated sea level rise, and potential human actions in response to such coastal change.

CGC AWARDED DUKE ENERGY GIFT
The Center on Global Change, the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions have received a $2.5 million gift from Duke Energy for a “Carbon Solution Partnership.” This Partnership will utilize the grantees’ joint expertise in science and environmental policy to address key issues associated with energy and the environment. The CGC’s share of this gift is $833,333 over three years.
Duke News Release >

CGC AWARDED SUMMER INSTITUTE GRANT
The Center on Global Change has been awarded a $126,000 NSF grant to hold the Second Summer Institute on Ecological Forecasting in 2006. This highly successful two-week summer program, first held in 2004, is designed to train a highly selective group of young graduate and post-graduate environmental scientists in modern statistical computation techniques that have emerged over the last decade. The principal investigator is Jim Clark, of Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment & Earth Sciences and Biology Department. Institute instructors will include faculty in ecology, statistics, and atmospheric science from Duke and a number of other universities and research institutions around the country.

CGC SYMPOSIUM: AMAZON CLIMATE AND HYDROLOGY
May 9-10, 2005
A 2-day workshop with national and international global change scientists to discuss Amazon climate and hydrology will take place in Love Auditorium, Levine Science Research Center, on Monday and Tuesday, May 9-10. The symposium is sponsored by the Center on Global Change, and is free and open to the public. Registration begins at 8am on Monday, May 9. A reception for participants will be held in the Hall of Science, at 5pm on Monday, May 9.

Symposium agenda (.pdf) >
Symposium presentations (streaming video and .ppt) >

FORUM ON LANDSCAPES, GENOMICS AND TRANSGENIC CONIFER FORESTS
The Center on Global Change is co-sponsoring an interdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder forum on transgenic conifers to be held at Duke University on November 17-19, 2004. The forum has four themes:
1) Emerging genomics, gene discovery and commercialization;
2) Ecological relevance of genomics;
3) Land ownership perspective; and
4) Regulatory perspective.
By convening policy specialists, research administrators, academicians, governmental agency representatives, and leaders in the nonprofit sector, the forum organizers hope to conduct a science-based dialogue, synthesize innovative applications for burgeoning conifer genomics information, and identify gaps in the current research framework. Further information can be found here >.