Turning forest waste into biochar

Too much biomass waste in tundra and boreal forests makes them prone to wildfires, especially when heatwaves strike. Furthermore, leaving biomass waste in the forest can cause a lot of methane emisions from decomposition.

In order to reduce such methane emissions and the risk of wildfires, it makes sense to reduce excess biomass waste in fields and forests. Until now, this was typically done by controlled burning of biomass, which also causes emissions, but far less than wildfires do. Avoiding wildfires is particularly important for the Arctic, which is vulnerable to soot deposits originating from wildfires in tundra and boreal forest. Such soot deposits cause more sunlight to be absorbed, accelerating the decline of snow and ice in the Arctic.

A team of scientists at University of Washington, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, has developed a way to remove woody biomass waste from forests without burning it in the traditional way. The team has developed a portable kiln that can be assembled around a heap of waste wood and convert it to biochar on the spot, while the biochar can also be burried in the soil on the spot.

Demonstration in Kerby, Oregon,
Nov. 6, 2012,  by Carbon Cultures. 
Credit: Marcus Kauffman at Flickr

The team initially started testing the effectiveness of a heat-resistant blanket thrown over woody debris.  The team then developed portable panels that are assembled in a kiln around a slash pile.

Students have set up a company, Carbon Cultures, to promote the technology and to sell biochar. CEO of Carbon Cultures is Jenny Knoth, also a Ph.D. candidate in environmental and forest sciences.

The kiln restricts the amount of oxygen that can reach the biomass, which is transformed by pyrolysis into biochar. The woody waste is heated up to temperatures of about 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit (600 Celsius), as the kiln transforms some 800 pounds of wood into 200 pounds of biochar in less than two hours. “We also extinguish with water because it helps keep oxygen out and also activates the charcoal [making it more fertile in soil].”

Currently, the total costs of disposing of forest slash heaps (the collections of wood waste) approximate a billion dollars a year in the United States, according to Knoth.

And of course, adding biochar to the soil is a great way to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. “Biochar is proven to fix carbon for hundreds of thousands of years,” Knoth said.

Demonstration in Kerby, Oregon, November 6, 2012, organized by Carbon Cultures.  Credit: Marcus Kauffman at Flickr

As said, when biomass waste is left in the open air, methane emissions are produced during its decomposition. Moreover, such waste will fuel wildfires, which produce huge amounts of emissions. The traditional response therefore is to burn such waste. Pyrolyzing biomass produces even less greenhouse gases and less soot, compared to such controlled burning.

Biochar is produced in the process, which can be added to the soil on the spot. This will help soil retain moisture, nutrients and soil microbes, making forests more healthy, preventing erosion and thus reduces the risk of wildfires even further, in addition to the reduction already achieved by removal of surplus waste.

A healthy forest will retain more moist in its soil, in the air under its canopy, and in the air above the forest through expiration, resulting in more clouds that act as sunshades to keep the forest cool and return the moist to the forest through rainfall. Forests reinforce patterns of air pressure and humidity that result in long-distance air currents that bring moist air from the sea inland to be deposited onto the forest in the form of rain. Finally, clouds can reflect more sunlight back into space, thus reducing the chance of heatwaves.

References

- Recycling wood waste - The Daily of the University of Washington
- Helping Landowners with Waste Wood While Improving Agribusiness and Energy - National Science Foundation

Related

- Biochar
- CU-Boulder gets into biochar

- Fires are raging again across Russia
- Abrupt Local Warming

Chinese KLJ-3 pulse Doppler fire control radar copied from Israeli technologies for "peaceful" rise

Chinese KLJ-3 pulse Doppler fire control radar

The first step in the reverse engineering process is to import a couple of kits and then copy them part by part to final assembly.

Recently, Russian media reports that the Chinese J-10 fighter uses NIIR Phazotron Company’s Zhuk Zhemchoug airborne fire control radar. In fact, PLA Air force J-10 is equipped domestic KLJ-3 pulse Doppler fire control radar.

KLJ-3 radar is indeed the result of the introduction of foreign technology, but it is not from Russia, but Israel.

In 1986, J-10 fighter program started. When the Chinese Air Force dispatched pilots go to France to fly Mirage 2000 for evaluation, the Chinese pilots were impressed with Mirage-2000′s avionics and advanced cockpit display system. After the test in France, Pilot Ge Wenyong bluntly said that if counterpart Mirage 2000 pilots do not make mistakes, PLA Air Force J-7 and J-8 fighters have no chance of winning. But Chinese electronics industry was weak at 1980s, and it is difficult to meet the development requirements of the new combat aircraft. In this case, the Heads of Chinese military has determined to actively introduce advanced foreign technology, and push the the development of Chinese avionics industry.

In later 1980s, China began aviation technical cooperation with Israel, including the a full set of LAVI fighter avionics systems. LAVI’s original EL/M-2035 multifunction pulse Doppler fire control radar, which uses a phase parameters transmitter and multi-channel receiver, programmable signal processing system, look-down capacity as 46 km detection range. Its air-to-air modes include RWS (range-while-search), TWS (Track-While-Scan), dogfight, single target tracking; the air-to-ground modes include ranging, real beam mapping and Doppler beam sharpening. The radar has weights of 138 kg. However when the LAVI project ended, the development of EL/M-2035 was also cancelled.

Later, Israel improved EL/M-2035 improvements into EL/M-2032, which was displayed for the first time at the 1987 Paris Air Show. EL/M-2032 in aerial target designation mode has the maximum search distance to reach 150 km; in the air-to-sea mode detection range over 300 km. There have been reports that the Israeli Air Force are not satisfied with F-16I fighter AN/APG-68V-9 radar’s performance and hoped to replace by EL/M-2032 radar, but the United States refused. This also reflects high- performance EL/M-2032, rising as a threat to the U.S. radar.

The introduction of the LAVI aviation electronic systems in China, was known as the 873 avionics integrated system based on 1553B data bus, which was officially launched in 1989, began to conduct test flights in 1993. Other sub-systems including airborne radar, inertial navigation, mission computer display management sub-systems, air data computers, plug-in management system. The 873 project has laid a solid foundation for J-10 to reach full operational capability and greatly raise the R&D Level of Chinese aviation industry.

China imported a multi-Ministry EL/M-2032-radar airborne radar, on which China develops KLJ-3 radar. KLJ-3 uses a double mode grid controlled TWT transmitter, so that the radar is the equivalent of two transmitters, greatly improve the performance of the radar. KLJ-3 works by low operating ratio in the low PRF mode, but also work in high work than high PRF mode. It means KLJ-3 features with real multifunction performance.

The real specifications of KLJ-3 radar are still unknown, but we can deduce its performance by KLJ-7 radar. Pakistan Air Force JF-17 is equipped with KLJ-7 airborne pulse Doppler radar with maximum detection range of 130 km, TWS mode can simultaneously track 10 targets and simultaneously guided two SD-10A active radar-guided air-to-air missile attack two biggest threats. KLJ-7 also has ground moving target indication, synthetic aperture imaging and other advanced work mode, with a strong ground attack capability. KLJ-7 antenna aperture and power supply capacity is lower than the J-10′s KLJ-3, so you can imagine KLJ-3 has better tactical and technical indicators.
China started airborne radar cooperation with Russia at the beginning of 1990s. In addition to NO01E, NO01VE radar for supporting the Su-27SK, Su-30MKK fleets, China also imported some Russian radars including ZHUK Series radar and PERO passive phased array antenna.

Chinese J-8IIM fighter is the first one equipped with Russian ZHUK-8-2 radar. After the disintegration of the former Soviet Union, the development of ZHUK radar was not quite smoothly, and Russian Air Force did not use it. The ultimate success of ZHUK-M-type radar developed in 2002 ultimately is equipped with the Russian MiG-29SMT fighter and the Indian Navy’s MiG-29KUB fighter.

“Zhemchoug” radar is a light version of ZHUK-M radar with performance decreased. “Zhemchoug” radar actually was later than the time of the production of F-10 fighter. Chinese J-10 airborne radar is also different with “Zhemchoug” IFF antenna design, therefore J-10 has no relation with Russia “Zhemchoug” radar.

Through the combination of technology introduction and self-development, Chinese airborne radar has made a breakthrough in the beginning of 2000s, making significant progress in the field of antenna precision manufacturing and transmitter power density, brings a strong impetus to Chinese radar tactical and technical indicators. Chinese-made radar may learn some from Russian radar technology, but the Chinese fighter almost has no possibility of directly using Russian radar. Besides, China is also developing airborne active phased array radar.

How to avoid mass-scale death, destruction and extinction

The FAO Food Price Index shows that high food prices have been around for the past few years. The FAO, in its recent Cereal Supply and Demand Brief, explains that we can expect prices to rise, as illustrated below.

The Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture mentions, in its Food Price Outlook, 2012-2013, that the "drought has affected prices for corn and soybeans as well as other field crops which should, in turn, drive up retail food prices".

Global food supply is under stress as extreme weather becomes the new norm. Farmers may be inclined to respond to drought by overusing ground water, or by slashing and burning forest, in efforts to create more farmland. Such practices do not resolve the problems; instead, they tend to exacerbate the problems over time, making things progressively worse.

The diagram below shows that there are many climatological feedbacks (ten of which are pictured) that make climate change worse. At the top, the diagram pictures vicious cycles that are responses by farmers that can add to make the situation even worse. Without effective action, the prospect is that climate change and crop failure combine to cause mass death and destruction, with extinction becoming the fourth development of global warming.

How can we avoid that such a scenario will eventuate? Obviously, once we are in the fourth development, i.e. mass-scale famine and extintion, it will be too late for action. Similarly, if the world moves into the third development, i.e. runaway global warming, it will be hard, if not impossible to reverse such a development. Even if we act now, it will be hard to reverse the second development, i.e. accelerated warming in the Arctic.

The most effective action will target causes rather than symptoms of these developments.

Part 1. Since emissions are the cause of global warming, dramatic cuts in emissions should be included in the first part of the responses. In addition, action is needed to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and oceans. Storing the carbon in the soil will also improve soil quality, as indicated by the long green arrow on the left.

Part 2. Solar radiation management is needed to cool the Arctic.

Part 3. Methane management and further action is needed, e.g. to avoid that methane levels will rise further in the Arctic, which threatens to trigger further releases and escalate into runaway global warming. Measures to reduce methane can also benefit soil quality worldwide, as indicated by the long green arrow on the right.

Thus, the proposed action tackles the prospect of mass death and extinction by increasing soil fertility, as illustrated by the image below.

As indicated at the bottom of the image, the most effective policies to accomplish the goals set out in both part 1. and part 3. are feebates, preferably implemented locally.

Indian Airforce SU30MKI aircraft over the Indian Ocean

Click to zoom

High methane levels persist in December 2012

The image below was posted earlier at Methane contributes to accelerated warming in the Arctic. As mentioned there, this is a compilation of images produced by Dr. Leonid Yurganov, comparing methane levels between November 21-30, 2008 (below left), and November 21-30, 2012 (below right).

Dr. Yurganov has released two further images this year, i.e. for December 1-10, 2012 (below left), and for December 11-20, 2012 (below right).

The images show that the highest methane levels show up above the water, as opposed to above land, indicating that methane is being released from the seabed across the Arctic. The images further show that high levels of methane persist in December 2012.

Apart from comparing 10-day periods, we can also look at methane levels for individual days. The NOAA image below shows methane levels up to 2167 ppb on December 27, 2012, for the morning set of measurements.

To better see where the high (yellow) levels of methane were measured, a map with empty data is added below, showing the location of the continents more clearly on the map.

Pressure levels at which measurements are taken are displayed in hectopascals (symbol hPa) which are numerically equivalent to millibars (mb). A pressure of 600 mb (or hPa) corresponds with an altitude of 13794.9 ft (4204.7 m). By comparison, air pressure at mean sea level is 1013.25 hPa (millibar), or 29.92 inches of mercury.

The map below, from apocalypse4realmethane2012, shows methane measurements taken on the same day (December 27, 2012, morning set), but at 718 mb, which corresponds with an altitude that is a bit closer down to sea level. The map focuses on the Arctic and shows geographic names. If you like, click on the map to enlarge it.

Methane measurements were taken with the IASI (Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer) instrument, fitted onto the European Space Agencys (ESA) MetOp series of polar orbiting satellites.

For further analysis, the NOAA image with surface temperature anomalies for December 28, 2012, is added above, showing anomalies up to 20 degrees Celsius. Furthermore, the NOAA image with sea surface temperature anomalies for December 27, 2012, is added below, showing anomalies up to 5 degrees Celsius.

Albedo changes in the Arctic

How global warming and feedbacks are causing huge albedo changes in the Arctic.

Snow cover decline

Decline of the snow cover on land in the northern hemisphere is accelerating, as illustrated by the image below and the image underneath on the right. (1)

Image credit: Rutgers University

Fresh snow can have an albedo as high as 0.85, meaning that up to 85% of the sunlight falling on snow can get reflected back into space. As the snow melts, its structure changes making it less reflective, i.e. its albedo will go down, to as low as 40%. (2)

As a result, more sunlight gets absorbed, accelerating the melting process. Eventually, where snow melts away, spots of bare soil become exposed, and dark wet soil has a very low albedo, reflecting only between 5% and 15% of the sunlight. Thus, even more sunlight gets absorbed and the soil's temperature increases, causing more of the remaining snow to melt. (2)

Changes in vegetation can further accelerate this process. Russia's boreal forest - the largest continuous expanse of forest in the world - has seen a transformation in recent years from larch to conifer trees. Larch trees drop their needles in the fall, allowing the vast, snow-covered ground in winter to reflect sunlight and heat back into space and helping to keep temperatures in the region very cold. But conifers such as spruce and fir retain their needles, which absorb sunlight and increase the forest's ground-level heat retention. (3)

Albedo, from Wikipedia

A conversion from larch to evergreen stands in low-diversity regions of southern Siberia would generate a local positive radiative forcing of 5.1±2.6 W m−2. This radiative heating would reinforce the warming projected to occur in the area under climate change. (4)

Tundra in the Arctic used to be covered by a white blanket of snow most of the year. However, as the landscape is warming up, more trees and shrubs appear. Scientists who studied part of the Eurasian Arctic, found that willow and alder shrubs, once stunted by harsh weather, have been growing upward to the height of trees in recent decades. They now rise above the snowfall, presenting a dark, light-absorbing surface. This increased absorption of the Sun's radiation, combined with microclimates created by forested areas, adds to global warming, making an already-warming climate warm even more rapidly. (5 & 6)

Furthermore, encroachment of trees onto Arctic tundra caused by the warming may cause large release of carbon to the atmosphere, concludes a recent study. This is because tundra soil contains a lot of stored organic matter, due to slow decomposition, but the trees stimulate the decomposition of this material. (7)


Sea ice decline

In the Arctic, sea ice volume has fallen dramatically over the years, as illustrated by the image on the right. The trend points at 2014 as the year when Arctic sea ice will first reach zero volume for some time during that year. (8)

The Arctic Ocean looks set to be ice-free for a period of at least three months in 2015 (August, September and October), and for a period of at least 6 months from the year 2020 (June through to November). (9)

Decline of the Arctic sea ice is accelerating, due to numerous feedbacks. As the Arctic atmosphere warms up, any snow cover on top of the ice will melt away ever quickly, decreasing the surface albedo and thus reinforcing the warm-up. As melt ponds appear on top of the ice, the albedo will drop even further.

Sam Carana's Diagram of Doom pictures ten feedbacks that jointly work to accelerate sea ice decline. (10)

The image below shows the three areas where albedo change will be felt most in the Arctic, i.e. sea ice loss, decline of albedo in Greenland and more early and extensive retreat of snow and ice cover in other areas in the Arctic. (8)

Big changes in the Arctic within years, by Sam Carana

References

1. Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover Anomalies 1967-2012 June, Rutgers University
climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php?ui_set=1&ui_region=nhland&ui_month=6

2. Albedo, Albedo Change blog
albedochange.blogspot.com/2009/02/albedo-change.html

3. Shift in Northern Forests Could Increase Global Warming, Scientific American, March 28, 2011
scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=shift-northern-forests-increase-global-warming

4. Sensitivity of Siberian larch forests to climate change, Shuman et al., April 5, 2011, Wiley.com
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02417.x/abstract

5. Warming turns tundra to forest
ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2012/120604.html

6. Eurasian Arctic greening reveals teleconnections and the potential for structurally novel ecosystems, Macias-Fauria et al., 2012
nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n8/full/nclimate1558.html

7. Expansion of forests in the European Arctic could result in the release of carbon dioxide, University of Exeter news, June 18, 2012
exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_214902_en.html

8. Big changes in the Arctic within years, Sam Carana, October 26, 2012, Arctic-News blog
arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/10/big-changes-in-arctic-within-years.html

9. Getting the Picture, Sam Carana, August 2012, Arctic-News blog
arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/08/getting-the-picture.html

10. Diagram of Doom, Sam Carana, August 2012, Arctic-News blog
arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/08/diagram-of-doom.html


Further reading

- Albedo change in the Arctic
arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/07/albedo-change-in-arctic.html

- Greenland is melting at incredible rate
arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/07/greenland-is-melting-at-incredible-rate.html

- Albedo change in the Arctic threatens to cause runaway global warming
arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/10/albedo-change-in-the-arctic-threatens-to-cause-runaway-global-warming.html

Russian Air Force Gets First Six Su-35S Fighter Jets

SU-35S

MOSCOW, December 28 – The Sukhoi aircraft maker delivered on Friday the first six Su-35S fighter jets to the Russian Air Force, the company said.
The acceptance documents were signed by Defense Ministry officials at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur aircraft manufacturing plant in Russia’s Far East.

The Sukhoi holding has fulfilled its obligations on the delivery of this type of aircraft under the 2012 state defense order,” the company said in a statement.
“The fighter jets will fly to their designated home base in the near future,” the statement said.
The Su-35, powered by two 117S engines with thrust vectoring, combines high maneuverability and the capability to effectively engage several air targets simultaneously using both guided and unguided missiles and weapon systems.
The aircraft has been touted as "4++ generation using fifth-generation technology."
The Russian Defense Ministry is planning to buy about 90 Su-35s, which will gradually become the core of Russia’s fighter jet fleet.