Climate Feedback

Sure, accidentally heating the planet has been pretty easy. But try intentionally heating a plot of forest, and you get a whole other story.

In this week’s Nature, we take a brief look at a series of new experiments to test how warmer temperatures will change the composition of forests in different regions of the United States. Will forests begin to sprout above the tree line in the Colorado Rocky Mountains? Will oaks sweep northwards, deeper into the boreal forests of the northern United States and Canada?

Unfortunately, reliably and evenly heating a stand of grown trees to a set number of degrees above ambient temperature turns out to be pretty difficult to do. For now, these projects are limited to seedlings which will outgrow their heaters within a few years. Such studies are valuable in their own right – seedlings lack the extensive root networks that could help them survive a hot, dry summer, and are therefore a weak link in the chain of forest succession. Still, wouldn’t it be great if we could see the effects of climate change on the grown-ups, too?

Continue reading "How to heat a forest… or at least, a part of one" »

Posted by Anna Barnett on July 30, 2009
Categories: Biodiversity and Ecology, Heidi Ledford | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The data on 2008 venture capital investment are predictably grim, but in a year of financial heartbreak, the cleantech sector stands out as one of the rare winners.

According to a MoneyTree report, US venture capitalists invested 52% more money in the sector in 2008 than in 2007, bringing the year’s total to $4.1 billion. Compare that to the 8% drop in overall venture capital investment during 2008.

Meanwhile, the folks at Cleantech Group, LLC have international numbers spanning North America, Europe, China, and India. Their 2008 total: $8.4 billion – 38% higher than in 2007.

Cleantech Group says that solar power companies were the biggest winners, capturing $3.3 billion in venture capital funds last year. After that came biofuels ($904 million), transportation ($795 million), wind ($502 million), smart grid ($345 million), agriculture ($166 million), and water ($148 million). US solar companies swept up four of the top five deals: together, NanoSolar, Solyndra, SoloPower, and Solar Reserve garnered $859 million. (The outlier in the top five list was WinWinD, a Finnish wind power company.)

These cheerful numbers don’t mean that the financial crisis has left the industry unscathed. Growth in the industry appears to be slowing down, judging from data in the MoneyTree report. US cleantech investment increased 85% in 2007 compared to 2006, and investment in 2006 was a whopping 160% greater than investment in 2005. In addition, investment in cleantech dropped 14% in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared with the third -- many say the fourth quarter is a more realistic predictor of what’s to come in 2009 than the 2008 totals.

Still, Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association says consumer fervor and government support of cleantech will buffer the industry against the growing economic storm. “Even with a tough economic situation, I think cleantech kind of rises above the economic uncertainty,” he said recently.

For the full story on how the cleantech boom is defying the downturn, see the latest issue of Nature.

Heidi Ledford is a reporter with Nature's online news team

Posted by Olive Heffernan on February 05, 2009
Categories: Business, Economics, Heidi Ledford, Technology | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)