[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AT
THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND
ENVIRONMENT
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 9, 2009
__________
Serial No. 111-30
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science and Technology
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.science.house.gov
______
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. BART GORDON, Tennessee, Chair
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois RALPH M. HALL, Texas
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER JR.,
LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California Wisconsin
DAVID WU, Oregon LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington DANA ROHRABACHER, California
BRAD MILLER, North Carolina ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
MARCIA L. FUDGE, Ohio W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
BEN R. LUJAN, New Mexico RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
PAUL D. TONKO, New York BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
JIM MATHESON, Utah BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri PETE OLSON, Texas
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona
CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio
KATHLEEN DAHLKEMPER, Pennsylvania
ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
SUZANNE M. KOSMAS, Florida
GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
VACANCY
------
Subcommittee on Energy and Environment
HON. BRIAN BAIRD, Washington, Chair
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
BEN R. LUJAN, New Mexico MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
PAUL D. TONKO, New York
JIM MATHESON, Utah
LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
BART GORDON, Tennessee RALPH M. HALL, Texas
JEAN FRUCI Democratic Staff Director
CHRIS KING Democratic Professional Staff Member
MICHELLE DALLAFIOR Democratic Professional Staff Member
SHIMERE WILLIAMS Democratic Professional Staff Member
ELAINE PAULIONIS PHELEN Democratic Professional Staff Member
ADAM ROSENBERG Democratic Professional Staff Member
ELIZABETH STACK Republican Professional Staff Member
TARA ROTHSCHILD Republican Professional Staff Member
JANE WISE Research Assistant
C O N T E N T S
June 9, 2009
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Brian Baird, Chair, Subcommittee on
Energy and Environment, Committee on Science and Technology,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 9
Written Statement............................................ 9
Statement by Representative Bob Inglis, Ranking Minority Member,
Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Committee on Science
and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.................. 11
Written Statement............................................ 12
Prepared Statement by Representative Jerry F. Costello, Member,
Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Committee on Science
and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.................. 12
Prepared Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Member, Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Committee on
Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.......... 13
Statement by Representative Ben R. Lujan, Member, Subcommittee on
Energy and Environment, Committee on Science and Technology,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 10
Written Statement............................................ 10
Witnesses:
Dr. Paul J. Hanson, Distinguished Research and Development
Scientist, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Chief Scientist,
Program for Ecosystem Research, U.S. Department of Energy
Oral Statement............................................... 14
Written Statement............................................ 16
Biography.................................................... 18
Dr. David C. Bader, Program Manager for Climate Change Research,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 18
Written Statement............................................ 20
Biography.................................................... 24
Dr. Nathan G. McDowell, Staff Scientist and Director of the Los
Alamos Environmental Research Park, Los Alamos National
Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 26
Written Statement............................................ 27
Biography.................................................... 33
Dr. J. Whitfield Gibbons, Professor Emeritus of Ecology; Head of
the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory Environmental Education
and Outreach Program, University of Georgia
Oral Statement............................................... 33
Written Statement............................................ 35
Biography.................................................... 37
Discussion
Land Remediation............................................... 39
Funding Sources and Park Activity.............................. 40
Environmental Degradation and Water Studies.................... 42
The Study of Renewable Energy Sources.......................... 44
Climate Modeling............................................... 45
Evidence of Climate Change..................................... 47
More on Remediation............................................ 50
Appendix 1: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Nathan G. McDowell, Staff Scientist and Director of the Los
Alamos Environmental Research Park, Los Alamos National
Laboratory..................................................... 54
Appendix 2: Additional Material for the Record
H.R. 2729, To authorize the designation of National Environmental
Research Parks by the Secretary of Energy, and for other
purposes....................................................... 56
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
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TUESDAY, JUNE 9, 2009
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Energy and Environment,
Committee on Science and Technology,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brian
Baird [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
hearing charter
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Environmental Research at
the Department of Energy
tuesday, june 9, 2009
10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
2318 rayburn house office building
Purpose
On Tuesday, June 9, 2009 the House Committee on Science and
Technology, Subcommittee on Energy and Environment will hold a hearing
entitled ``Environmental Research at the Department of Energy.''
The Subcommittee's hearing will receive testimony on H.R. 2729,
sponsored by Rep. Lujan, to authorize the seven existing National
Environmental Research Parks as permanent research reserves and
provides guidance for research, education, and outreach activities to
be conducted on or in collaboration with the Parks. The hearing will
examine how the Parks have been used to study long-term trends in the
development of ecosystems, develop methods to monitor and remediate
contaminants, and conduct environmental education and outreach
programs. The hearing will also examine other climate and environmental
research programs conducted by the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of
Science.
Witnesses
Dr. Paul Hanson is the Ecosystem Science Group Leader
at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dr. Hanson will testify on
DOE's carbon cycle studies, with a focus on experimentation and
measurement. He will also address the importance and utility of
the Oak Ridge National Environmental Research Park.
Dr. David Bader will testify on his role as the
Director of the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and
Intercomparison, which conducts comparative computational
modeling studies and synthesizes the U.S. contribution to
research coordinated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change.
Dr. Nathan McDowell is a lead researcher in the
Atmospheric, Climate, and Environmental Dynamics Group at Los
Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. McDowell will testify on
research and educational activities conducted by the Los Alamos
National Environmental Research Park.
Dr. Whit Gibbons is Professor Emeritus of Ecology at
the University of Georgia and Head of the Environmental
Outreach and Education program at the Savannah River Ecology
Laboratory (SREL). He has also been involved in collecting and
managing several long-term sampling programs at the Savannah
River National Environmental Research Park.
Background
National Environmental Research Parks
The National Environmental Research Parks (NERPs) are unique
outdoor laboratories that provide opportunities for environmental
studies on protected lands around DOE facilities. They offer secure
settings for long-term research on a broad range of subjects, including
biomass production, environmental remediation, plant succession,
population ecology, ecological restoration, and thermal effects on
freshwater ecosystems. The Parks also provide rich environments for
training researchers and introducing the public to ecological sciences.
Interest in the use of radionuclides in ecological research evolved
after World War II. To ensure the security and safety of the Nation's
work on nuclear weapons, the government established laboratories in
isolated regions surrounded by large buffer zones of undeveloped land.
DOE's predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), began to
recognize the need to track both radioactive fallout from the testing
of nuclear weapons and inadvertent radioactive releases from nuclear
weapons production facilities into the environment. Out of the
radionuclide research grew new technologies for quantifying the
movement both of natural materials such as nutrients and fluids and of
introduced pollutants through the ecosystem.
In 1970, the Office of Science and Technology Policy provided
President Nixon with ten recommendations on the stewardship and use of
federal lands. One of these was to utilize federal lands to conduct
research on ecosystems and wildlife biology and preservation. In 1972
AEC established its first research park at the Savannah River Site in
South Carolina. The plan for a research park emerged during a formal
review of the environmental research activities at Savannah River. The
review team consisted of scientists, representatives from other Federal
agencies, and members of the newly formed President's Council on
Environmental Quality. Four years later, DOE released a charter and
directives for current and future research parks, initially shaped by
the recommendations of this team.
The seven National Environmental Research Parks are located within
six major ecological regions of the United States (Figure 1), covering
more than half of the Nation. More information on each can be found in
Table 1 above.
The mission of the research parks is to: conduct research and
education activities to assess and document environmental effects
associated with energy and weapons use; explore methods for eliminating
or minimizing adverse effects of energy development and nuclear
materials on the environment; train people in ecological and
environmental sciences; and educate the public. The Parks maintain
several long-term data sets that are available nowhere else in the U.S.
or in the world on amphibian populations, bird populations, and soil
moisture and plant water stress. This data is uniquely valuable for the
detection of long-term shifts in climate.
Over the years since their establishment, there have been thousands
of scientific papers published on the environmental studies done at the
NERPs. The research at these sites has been conducted by DOE
scientists, scientists from other federal agencies, universities and
private foundations.
The maintenance of the Parks by DOE meets the Department's
statutory obligations to promote sound environmental stewardship of
federal lands and to safeguard sites containing cultural and
archaeological resources.
DOE Research in Climate and Environmental Sciences
Climate and Environmental Sciences is a major component of the DOE
Office of Science's Biological and Environmental Research program. It
focuses on developing a comprehensive understanding of the fundamental
science associated with carbon cycling and climate change and
developing monitoring and remediation methods to address the control
and clean up of environmental contaminants on DOE facilities. Climate
and Environmental Sciences supports three research activities and two
national scientific user facilities. The Climate and Earth System
Modeling activity focuses on development, evaluation, and use of large-
scale computational models to determine the impacts and possible
mitigation of climate change. Atmospheric System Research seeks to
resolve two areas of uncertainty in climate change projections: the
role of clouds and the effects of aerosol emissions on the atmospheric
radiation (heat) balance of the Earth. The Environmental System Science
program supports research to understand the effects of climate change
on terrestrial ecosystems, the role of terrestrial ecosystems in global
carbon cycling, and the role of subsurface biochemical processes on the
transport and fate of contaminants, including heavy metals and
radionuclides. Two scientific user facilities--the Atmospheric
Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility (ACRF) and the
Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL)--provide the
scientific community with technical capabilities, scientific expertise,
and unique information to facilitate research in the above-mentioned
areas. Details on current and proposed funding for Climate and
Environmental Sciences can be found in Table 2.
Atmospheric Science Program
The emphasis for the Atmospheric Science program is on
understanding the effects of aerosols on climate. The program is
focused on understanding atmospheric processes that influence
transport, transformation, and fate of trace chemicals and particulate
matter associated with energy use and that are generated through
natural processes. This work is done as part of the U.S. Global Change
Research Program in coordination with the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) fourth assessment report identified cloud simulation as a
major source of uncertainty in climate models. Improvement in this area
could reduce the range of projected increases in Earth's average
surface temperature could be narrowed significantly. With regard to
aerosols, the challenge is further complicated by the variety of
compositions, shapes, and sizes of aerosol particles and the fact that
they can act to either enhance or offset warming. This research seeks
to increase the reliability of atmospheric process representations and
interactions among processes that are needed inputs for the development
of the next generation of climate models.
Environmental System Science
Environmental System Science covers three major research thrusts:
The Terrestrial Ecosystem Science program focuses on
determining the effects of climate change on the structure and
functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, understanding the
processes controlling the exchange rate of carbon dioxide
(CO2) between atmosphere and terrestrial biosphere,
and improving the reliability of global carbon cycle models for
predicting future atmospheric concentrations of CO2.
Experiments involving controlled manipulations of climate
factors such as precipitation, temperature, and atmospheric
CO2 concentration are conducted to examine cause-
and-effect relationships between climate changes and effects on
ecosystems. This activity also supports AmeriFlux, the
interagency network for directly measuring net sources and
sinks of CO2 by terrestrial ecosystems.
The Terrestrial Carbon Sequestration program supports
research to: identify the physical, biological, and chemical
processes controlling soil carbon input, distribution, and
longevity; develop models of these systems to project future
scenarios of carbon storage or release in terrestrial systems;
and seek ways to exploit these processes to enhance carbon
sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems. Current research
focuses on switchgrass ecosystems associated with DOE's
cellulosic ethanol R&D program.
The Subsurface Biogeochemical Research program
addresses fundamental science questions at the intersection of
biology, geochemistry, and physics to determine the transport
and fate of contaminants in subsurface environments. This
research effort focuses in particular on processes that control
the mobility of radionuclides in the environment, which will
help address DOE strategic initiatives for cleanup and
monitoring of the Department's nuclear energy-related and
former nuclear weapons development sites. This activity
currently supports field research sites in Colorado, Tennessee,
and Washington to obtain samples for further evaluation in the
laboratory and to test laboratory-derived hypotheses regarding
subsurface transport at the field scale. These sites also are
important for testing and evaluating computer models that
describe contaminant mobility in the environment. In addition,
this activity will assist DOE's research on using deep
geological formations to store CO2 taken from the
atmosphere.
Climate and Earth System Modeling
The Climate and Earth System Modeling program covers several areas
of large-scale computational research. It examines the processes needed
to improve the coupled atmosphere, ocean, land, and sea ice models for
simulating climate variability and change over decadal to centennial
time scales with a current focus on incorporating advanced
representations of cloud-aerosol and carbon-cycle interactions. It also
supports climate model diagnosis and comparison, as well as the
development and improvement of metrics and diagnostic tools for
evaluating model performance. Over the next several years, analyses
will be conducted on a suite of global climate modeling experiments
that are currently being planned under the auspices of the World
Climate Research Program which addresses the scientific priorities
identified by the IPCC. DOE takes a lead role in coordinating the U.S.
contribution to these international climate research activities with
other federal agencies, in particular the National Science Foundation
(NSF), NOAA, and NASA.
An important additional component supported under this program is
the development of ``integrated assessment models.'' These models
provide advanced quantitative tools for exploring the implications of
policy decisions and technological innovations on our energy,
environmental, and economic futures. They integrate physical and social
science research to inform decision-makers of the potential impacts of
and uncertainties in their options. Understanding the role of present
and possible future energy technologies and their implications for
greenhouse gas emissions is also a major focus of this research.
Climate and Environmental Facilities and Infrastructure
DOE's Climate and Environmental Sciences subprogram supports two
significant user facilities:
The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate
Research Facility (ACRF) is unique in that it is a multi-
platform facility, with stationary and mobile instruments at
fixed and varying locations around the globe. ACRF provides
continuous field measurements of climate data to improve our
understanding of atmospheric processes and promote the
advancement of climate models through observations of
atmospheric phenomena. The stationary sites provide scientific
testbeds in three different climate regions (mid-latitude,
polar, and tropical). The two mobile facilities provide a
capability to address high priority scientific questions in
other regions. And the ACRF's aerial capability provides in
situ cloud and radiation measurements that complement ground-
based measurements.
The William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences
Laboratory (EMSL) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
provides an integrated suite of resources that enable
scientists to combine theory and computational modeling with
experimental data to develop a molecular-level understanding of
the physical, chemical, and biological processes that influence
the movement, transformation and fate of contaminants. EMSL's
users currently include 742 different institutions in 68
countries. All resources housed within EMSL are available at no
cost to researchers if their research results are shared in the
open literature, and access to these resources is awarded on a
peer-reviewed basis. EMSL's capabilities include: a
supercomputer designed specifically to solve large chemistry
and biochemistry problems; a series of advanced spectrometers
to examine biochemical processes as they occur; surface
deposition instruments to study and design materials at the
atomic and molecular scales; and high-precision subsurface flow
and transport tools to measure, model, and predict the
transport and fate of environmental contaminants.
Chair Baird. This hearing will come to order.
I thank everyone for joining us. This morning we will
explore some of the environmental research programs and
activities conducted by the Department of Energy and the
facilities the Department offers for scientists who do this
work. DOE's seven National Environmental Research Parks are
extraordinary outdoor laboratories that provide opportunities
for environmental studies on protected lands around DOE
facilities in a variety of geographic and ecological regions. I
am pleased that my colleague, Mr. Lujan, has introduced H.R.
2729, a bill that would authorize these parks in law formally
and provide the guidance and support they need to support
critical work in research, education and public outreach. I
should say parenthetically, I don't even know if Mr. Lujan
knows this, my father was in the final boys school class at Los
Alamos when the U.S. Government tapped him on the shoulder and
said ``young man, it is time for you to leave, we have some
work to do here at Los Alamos,'' and my brother was born in
Albuquerque and some years later I made a pilgrimage to Los
Alamos, and it is indeed remarkable, and we also near my
District have Hanford, and one of the great, I think, wonderful
paradoxes about this is that at the time those facilities were
constructed, they were still in a rather primitive state. My
father, when he was in the boys school, used to go on three-
week-long mule packing trips out into the wilderness of New
Mexico and with the establishment of Los Alamos, basically that
stayed in its same state, and much is true of the area
surrounding the Hanford lab. So some of the most high-tech,
sophisticated labs in the world ironically have some of the
most pristine environments, not in all cases, as we know at
Hanford, but parts of Hanford are in remarkably original
condition.
So I really commend Mr. Lujan for his initiative in
recognizing this unique resource and advocating on its behalf,
and at this time it is my pleasure to recognize Mr. Lujan for a
brief statement on his legislation.
[The prepared statement of Chair Baird follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chair Brian Baird
This morning we will explore some of the environmental research
programs and activities conducted by the Department of Energy and the
facilities the Department offers for scientists who do this work. DOE's
seven National Environmental Research Parks are extraordinary outdoor
laboratories that provide opportunities for environmental studies on
protected lands around DOE facilities in a variety of geographic and
ecological regions. I am pleased that my colleague Mr. Lujan has
introduced H.R. 2729, a bill that would authorize these parks in law,
formally and provide the guidance and support they need to support
critical work in research, education and public outreach.
We will also examine some of the broader research programs underway
at the DOE Office of Science's Climate and Environmental Sciences
Division. This division works to achieve a comprehensive understanding
of climate change, ocean acidification, and remediation of
environmental contaminants on land and in water.
Two of the programs are conducted as part of the U.S. contribution
to international climate research activities. DOE with other federal
agencies including NSF, NOAA, and NASA seek to resolve two remaining
areas of uncertainty in our understanding of climate change: the role
of clouds and the effects of aerosol emissions on the atmospheric
radiation balance between the sun and the Earth.
DOE's Environmental System Science program supports research on
carbon cycling in terrestrial ecosystems and its implications for
climate change. This program also examines the crucial role of
subsurface biochemical processes on the transport and fate of DOE-
relevant contaminants, including radionuclides relevant to the cleanup
of the Department's former weapons development sites. The persistent
contamination problems on these sites require on-going attention.
Development of methods to contain and remediate these substances is
very important to the people in my state.
We have an excellent panel of witnesses with us today. I appreciate
each of them taking the time to come and share their expertise with the
Subcommittee.
At this time, I recognize Mr. Lujan for a brief statement on his
legislation.
Mr. Lujan. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and we both
know how beautiful New Mexico is and it would be an honor if we
could have some of the Members of the Committee visit with us
and we could show them around New Mexico a bit and hopefully be
able to accomplish some great things and look at some of the
science behind the work that is happening there.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you very much,
Mr. Chairman, for holding the hearings on the National Research
Parks at the Department of Energy's facilities. As you have
stated, these parks have been providing environmental
scientists with unique, undisturbed environments for conducting
research since they were first established in the 1970s. The
ecosystems contained within these parks contain intact,
undisturbed native vegetation and wildlife that represents some
of the major ecosystems of the United States. The long-term
data sets that have been collected by these sites are extremely
valuable for understanding natural ecosystems and variability.
In a number of cases, these data sets represent the world's
longest continuous records.
For example, the scientists at Los Alamos have the world's
longest running data sets on soil moisture and plant and water
stress. The 2002 drought that killed off large areas of pinon
pine in New Mexico could be understood because of the long-
range data sets. This is the type of information we need to
anticipate the impacts of severe weather and climate on natural
systems and to develop strategies to manage the systems in the
face of climate change.
H.R. 2729 will provide core funding for an organizational
structure to support the important work of these parks. Again,
I thank the Chairman for holding this hearing and I look
forward to the testimony of our witnesses today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lujan follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative Ben R. Lujan
Thank you, Chairman Baird for holding this hearing on the National
Research Parks at the Department of Energy's facilities.
As you have stated, these Parks have been providing environmental
scientists with unique, undisturbed environments for conducting
research since they were first established in the early 1970's.
The ecosystems contained within these Parks contain intact,
undisturbed native vegetation and wildlife that represent some of the
major ecosystems of the United States. The long-term data sets that
have been collected from these sites are extremely valuable for
understanding natural ecosystem development and variability. In a
number of cases, these data sets represent the world's longest,
continuous records.
For example, the scientists at Los Alamos have the world's longest
running data sets on soil moisture and plant water stress. The 2002
drought that killed off large areas of pinon pine in New Mexico could
be understood because of these long-range data sets. This is the type
of information we need to anticipate the impacts of severe weather and
climate on natural systems and to develop strategies to manage these
systems in the face of climate change.
H.R. 2729 will provide core funding and an organizational structure
to support the important work of these Parks. Again, I thank the
Chairman for holding this hearing and I look forward to the testimony
of our witnesses today.
Chair Baird. Thank you again, Mr. Lujan. You know, one of
the things that biologists talk about a lot is the changing
baseline phenomenon that when you try to study something today
relative to 10 years earlier, that 10 years earlier was
different than what would have been 10 years earlier, and what
we have in these facilities that you have so wisely identified
with this legislation is a baseline that may be a pretty real
baseline and so the data set is incredibly valuable.
Today we will also examine some of the broader research
programs underway at the DOE Office of Science's Climate and
Environmental Science Division. This division works to achieve
a comprehensive understanding of climate change, ocean
acidification and remediation of environmental contaminants on
land and water.
Two of the programs are conducted as part of the U.S.
contribution to international climate research activities. DOE
along with other federal agencies including NSF, NOAA and NASA
seeks to resolve two remaining areas of uncertainty in our
understanding of climate change: the role of clouds and the
effects of aerosol emissions on the atmospheric radiation
balanced between the sun and the Earth.
DOE's Environmental System Science program supports
research on carbon cycling and terrestrial ecosystems and its
implications for climate change. This program also examines the
crucial role of subsurface biochemical processes on the
transport and fate of DOE relevant contaminants, including
radionuclides relevant to the cleanup of the Department's
former weapons development sites. The persistent contamination
problems on these sites require ongoing attention. Development
of methods to contain and remediate these substances is very
important to the people of my state, particularly if you look
at the issues surrounding Hanford.
We have an excellent panel of witnesses today. I appreciate
each of them taking time to come and share their expertise with
the Subcommittee, and with that, I would be happy to recognize
our distinguished Ranking Member, Mr. Inglis.
Mr. Inglis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this hearing.
It has been 37 years since the first Environmental Research
Park was established at the Savannah River site in Aiken, South
Carolina. Now nearly four decades later, we profit from seven
such research parks, each contributing a unique piece to our
national environment and ecological research portfolio.
I wonder how many blind spots we would have had in our
understanding of various ecosystems within this country were it
not for the commitment and vision of those who first
established these parks. The research education outreach gains
we have made through these institutions highlight our need to
continue supporting such efforts in the future. I appreciate
Representative Lujan's leadership to introduce H.R. 2979, a
bill to authorize these research parks permanently, and I look
forward to hearing the witnesses' comments and suggestions for
improving the bill.
In today's hearing, we will also discuss the work being
done in the climate and environment sciences through the
Department of Energy's Office of Science. Environmental
remediation and cleanup, climate modeling, atmospheric and
environmental system science are the major priorities of this
program. Each of these research areas presents significant
challenges that require substantial financial commitments, but
they are challenges that we must meet and I am interested to
hear from our witnesses on the strengths and weaknesses of
these research efforts.
Mr. Chairman, I should also point out that this is the last
time that my senior LA, Philip Van Steenburgh, will be with us
in Science. I think this really is the last time he is going to
be with us. He left once before and came back, so we are hoping
that--I keep doing this. Once a year maybe I will have this
farewell to Philip from the Science Committee and then he will
come back. But this time he may be going away for good to work
at Capitol Hill Baptist Church and then off to seminary after
that, but who knows. Maybe he will decide that the ministry of
the Science Committee is a good thing to commit to. We will see
if we can get him back. What do you think, Mr. Chairman?
Chair Baird. Philip, I want to thank you for your service.
I hope you have more success with your next flock than you have
had with this one. We are a much more recalcitrant bunch, I am
afraid, but we are all deeply indebted to the work of staff on
both sides of the aisle and I thank Mr. Inglis for
acknowledging your contribution. I wish you all the best in
your future role.
Mr. Inglis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Inglis follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative Bob Inglis
Good morning, and thank you for holding this hearing, Mr. Chairman.
It has been thirty-seven years since the first environmental
research park was established at the Savannah River Site in Aiken,
South Carolina. Now, nearly four decades later, we profit from seven
such research parks, each contributing a unique piece to our national
environmental and ecological research portfolio.
I wonder how many blind spots we would have in our understanding of
our various ecosystems within this country, were it not for the
commitment and vision of those who first established these parks? The
research, education, and outreach gains we've made through these
institutions highlight our need to continue supporting such efforts in
the future. I appreciate Representative Lujan's leadership to introduce
H.R. 2729, a bill to authorize these research parks permanently, and I
look forward to hearing the witnesses' comments and suggestions for
improving the bill.
In today's hearing, we will also discuss the work being done in
Climate and Environmental Sciences through the Department of Energy's
Office of Science. Environmental remediation and cleanup, climate
modeling, atmospheric and environmental system science are the major
priorities of this program. Each of these research areas presents
significant challenges that require substantial financial commitments.
But they are challenges we must meet, and I'm interested to hear from
our witnesses on the strengths and weaknesses of these research
efforts.
Thank you again for holding this hearing, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Costello follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative Jerry F. Costello
Good Morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding today's hearing
to examine Department of Energy (DOE) programs in environmental
research and to receive testimony on legislation H.R. 2729, To
authorize the designation of National Environmental Research Parks
(NERP) by the Secretary of Energy.
As this committee's passage of the National Climate Service Act of
2009 indicated, measuring and predicting the impact of climate
variation will be central to a sustainable energy policy. The
experiments and observations conducted at DOE-sponsored research
facilities will help scientists and policy makers protect our
ecosystems, resources, and infrastructure from the effects of a
changing climate. At the center of these research efforts are the seven
NERP facilities. Located in six distinct ecosystems, including the
prairies of Illinois, these cutting edge facilities conduct research
and provide information regarding the impact of energy and nuclear
policy on the environment.
Though the NERPs play a unique and important role in DOE
environmental research, they are not officially authorized by Congress
and do not receive a dedicated funding stream through the
appropriations process. My colleague, the gentleman from New Mexico,
Mr. Lujan, has introduced legislation to officially authorize and fund
the NERPs. I am interested to hear from our witnesses today how this
authorization would impact their work, and what recommendations they
have for this committee as we consider this legislation.
I am also interested to hear from Dr. Bader regarding his work with
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As my colleagues and I
have recognized on this committee, climate change is an international
problem. I would like to hear from Dr. Bader how research is
coordinated at the international level and how this committee can
support the DOE Office of Science in its efforts to remain at the
forefront of environmental research.
I welcome our panel of witnesses, and I look forward to their
testimony. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson
Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Our environment has been subjected to great contamination over the
past century.
The Department of Energy has specific research programs to measure,
model, and predict the transport and fate of environmental
contaminants.
It is very important to be able to determine where contaminants
travel in the environment.
As our nation invests more in nuclear power and other alternative
energy sources, these power plants will become old. They will need to
be modified or decommissioned.
An understanding of how to appropriately dismantle a nuclear power
plant is a key question that research at the Department of Energy helps
to fund.
In cases such as radiation spills or leaks, this research is also
of great importance.
Texas Tech has a strong research program in this area. Researchers
there study the impacts of some of the world's worst radioactive
accidents.
Teams of experts investigate radiological, genetic, and biological
impacts in settings contaminated with radiation.
Activities such as drilling for natural gas can lead to accidental
environmental contamination.
In Texas, radioactive elements rose to the surface, along with the
Barnett Shale's natural gas, at drilling sites.
Once above ground, the chemicals may remain suspended in the water
produced from the well. Otherwise, they fall from their own weight and
accumulate.
Statewide, 140 such ``hot'' sites were decontaminated from January
2005 to the 2007, according to documents from the Texas Department of
State Health Services, which oversees disposal of the state's hottest
radioactive waste.
Moreover, 25 of those decontamination sites were in Denton, Tarrant
and Wise counties, the core counties of the Barnett Shale. These areas
are near my Congressional District.
It is clear that more research should be done to determine the
relative risk of various human activities, whether it is drilling or
energy and radiation research.
We must do all that we can do understand the impacts of these
activities on human health.
Mr. Chairman, you may know that I chair the Transportation
Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.
Recently, I traveled to Tennessee to see, first-hand, the effects
of the environmental disaster caused by the coal ash spill in Kingston.
Many people's lives will forever be impacted by that spill.
We need good information on how to safeguard the public from
chemical and radiological impacts. We also need better oversight to see
that safety standards are being followed.
It is far better to prevent environmental disasters of this nature
than to clean up afterwards.
There is untold damage that is likely to become apparent years
later in the long-term health of the people living in that area.
The National Environmental Research Parks are well-positioned to
continue to provide research leadership and expertise in this area.
Whether the topic is carbon dioxide, radiation, or some other
chemical, the research parks study the movement and impacts of these.
I want to welcome today's witnesses. We have a varied set of
perspectives today, and I look forward to your views on environmental
research supported by the Department of Energy.
Chair Baird. Thank you, Mr. Inglis.
It is my pleasure to introduce our witnesses at this time.
Dr. Paul Hanson is the Ecosystem Science Group Leader at Oak
Ridge National Laboratory. Dr. David Bader will testify on his
role as Director of the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and
Intercomparison. Dr. Whit Gibbons is Professor Emeritus of
Ecology at the University of Georgia and Head of the
Environmental Outreach and Education Program at the Savannah
River Ecology Laboratory. At this time I will yield again to
Mr. Lujan to introduce our other witness.
Mr. Lujan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for allowing
me to introduce our witness from Los Alamos National
Laboratory. I am happy to welcome Dr. Nate McDowell to share
his expertise on these important issues with us today. Dr.
McDowell is the Director of the Los Alamos Environmental
Research Park and a Lead Researcher in the Earth and
Environmental Sciences Division at Los Alamos National
Laboratory. Today Dr. McDowell will testify on research and
educational activities conducted by the Los Alamos National
Research Park. Dr. McDowell brings extensive experience and
insight to us, especially in the areas of physiological and
ecosystem ecology. Dr. McDowell, thank you very much for being
with us today.
Chair Baird. Thank you, Mr. Lujan. As the witnesses can
tell, you have a very interested group here. All of us have
both personal and professional interest in your work and we are
grateful for your remarks today. I want to acknowledge the
presence of Ms. Giffords from Arizona. Thank you, Ms. Giffords.
With that, I would begin with our first witness, Dr.
Hanson.
STATEMENT OF DR. PAUL J. HANSON, DISTINGUISHED RESEARCH AND
DEVELOPMENT SCIENTIST, OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY; CHIEF
SCIENTIST, PROGRAM FOR ECOSYSTEM RESEARCH, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
ENERGY
Dr. Hanson. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and other Members of
the Committee. I am Dr. Paul J. Hanson. I hold the position of
Distinguished Research and Development Scientist at Oak Ridge
National Laboratory. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss
the Department of Energy Office of Science's support for
environmental research.
My comments will highlight advances in climate change
science gained through past and current support of terrestrial
ecosystem research, summarize conclusions of the scientific
community about the need for next-generation experiments and
measurements, and describe the importance of the DOE National
Environmental Research Parks as a protected land resource.
The Office of Science is an essential supporter of
fundamental research for understanding of environmental effects
associated with the application and use of energy technologies.
The Office of Science Research has clarified and quantified the
dominant role of the terrestrial carbon cycle in moderating
atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. This achievement has
been accomplished through sustained support of landscape-scale
carbon, water and energy exchange measurements in important
global biomes.
The Office of Science also encourages and enables large-
scale innovative experiments operating over multiple years.
Long-term support of elevated carbon dioxide exposure studies
in a range of ecosystems is one example. Those studies have
demonstrated enhanced terrestrial carbon uptake into both plant
biomass and soil carbon pools. The uptake capacity is reduced,
however, when nutrient limitations or water stress become key
constraints.
Long-term and large-scale precipitation manipulations
designed to induce severe drought have revealed a tremendous
contrast between the resilience of trees in wet eastern
ecosystems and the vulnerability of trees in dry western
environments.
Warming studies, both completed and ongoing, demonstrate a
complex mixture of responses including extended growth periods
and enhanced plant growth. Such arguably beneficial responses
are contrasted with warming-induced losses of important
greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and the acceleration of
drought occurrences.
Notwithstanding progress to date, new and more complex
research is still needed to improve our understanding of
fundamental mechanisms surrounding carbon release from long-
term biological storage pools and the vulnerability of species
in the face of rapid climate change. The absence of such
mechanisms within ecological models undermines our current
ability to provide policy-relevant predictions of both climate
change impacts and future greenhouse gas trajectories from
those ecosystems.
Long-lived organisms and virtually all ecological
communities that we recognize today will experience unique
climates in the future. Therefore, controlled experiments which
allow us to manipulate a wide range of environmental conditions
are the preferred method for characterizing ecosystem responses
and feedbacks.
Important environmental drivers to be studied in new
combinations and at multiple treatment levels include
temperature, water availability, atmospheric CO2
concentration and rising sea level in the case of low relief
coastal ecosystems.
The DOE National Environmental Research Parks are
distributed across the United States in a wide variety of
ecosystems from deciduous and pine forests in the East to arid
ecosystems in the West. These research parks provide protected
land areas appropriate for conducting climate change
manipulations and for measuring ecosystem functions under
changing environmental conditions.
Several globally extensive biomes associated with priority
carbon cycle feedback questions are not, however, represented
within DOE's National Environmental Research Park network. In
those cases, it will be necessary for DOE to partner with other
landowners to develop and conduct the necessary experiments and
measurements to advance the science of climate change.
By funding multi-disciplinary science at national
laboratories and universities, the DOE Office of Science plays
a dominant role in the support of terrestrial ecosystem studies
to understand the fate and function of global land surfaces and
their role in the Earth system. Only through the development of
an integrated understanding of multiple interacting
environmental effects can the scientific community generate
appropriate prognostic models to inform Congress and the public
about the capacity of our ecosystems to provide goods and
services for society under projected rapid rates of climate
change.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony. I would
be happy to answer questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Hanson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Paul J. Hanson
Good morning Mr. Chairman and other Members of the Committee. I am
Dr. Paul J. Hanson. I hold the position of Distinguished Research and
Development Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I also serve as
the Chief Scientist for the Department of Energy's Program for
Ecosystem Research. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the
Department of Energy, Office of Science's support for environmental
research.
My comments will (1) highlight advances in climate change science
gained through past and current support of terrestrial ecosystem
research, (2) summarize conclusions of the scientific community about
the need for next-generation experiments and measurements, and (3)
describe the importance of the DOE National Environmental Research
Parks as a protected land resource.
The Office of Science is an essential supporter of fundamental
research for understanding environmental effects associated with the
application and use of energy technologies. Recent research in this
area has focused on developing an understanding of how climatic and
atmospheric changes can modify the form and function of terrestrial
ecosystems.
Office of Science research has clarified and quantified the
dominant role of the terrestrial carbon cycle in moderating atmospheric
greenhouse gas concentrations. This achievement has been accomplished
through sustained support of landscape-scale carbon, water, and energy
exchange measurements in important global biomes.
The Office of Science also encourages and enables large-scale
innovative experiments operating over multiple years. Long-term support
of elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) exposure studies in a range
of ecosystems is one example. Those studies have demonstrated enhanced
terrestrial carbon uptake into both plant biomass and soil carbon
pools. The uptake capacity is reduced, however, when nutrient
limitations or water stress become key constraints. Terrestrial
components of the global carbon cycle must be known to calculate fossil
fuel use impacts on global greenhouse gas accumulation in the
atmosphere.
Long-term and large-scale precipitation manipulations designed to
induce severe drought have revealed a tremendous contrast between the
resilience of trees in wet eastern ecosystems and the vulnerability of
trees in dry western environments.
Warming studies, both completed and ongoing, demonstrate a complex
mixture of responses, including extended annual growth periods and
enhanced nutrient mineralization resulting in increased plant growth.
Such arguably beneficial responses are contrasted with warming-induced
losses of important greenhouse gases to the atmosphere (CO2
and methane) and the acceleration of drought conditions.
The Office of Science has also pioneered studies to apply state-of-
the-science technologies, molecular analyses, and genetic methods to
the evaluation of ecosystem-scale responses to climatic and atmospheric
changes.
Notwithstanding progress to date, new and more complex research is
still needed to improve our understanding of fundamental mechanisms
surrounding carbon release from long-term biological storage pools and
the vulnerability of species in the face of rapid climate change. The
absence of such mechanisms within ecological models undermines our
current ability to provide policy-relevant predictions of both climate
change impacts and future greenhouse gas trajectories from those
ecosystems.
Long-lived organisms and virtually all ecological communities that
we recognize today will experience unique climates in the future.
Therefore, controlled experiments, which allow us to manipulate a wide
range of environmental conditions, are the preferred method for
characterizing ecosystem responses and feedbacks.
Recent scientific committees and workshops concluded that available
experimental data are insufficient to address the complexity of climate
change impacts and feedbacks associated with terrestrial ecosystems
(e.g., Dickinson et al., 2008; Ehleringer et al., 2006; Hanson et al.,
2008; NRC, 2007). Existing studies have not used a sufficiently wide
range of temperatures and CO2 concentrations, nor have
multi-factor manipulations been attempted in key ecosystems.
Important environmental drivers to be studied in new combinations
and at multiple treatment levels include temperature, water
availability, atmospheric CO2 concentration, and rising sea
level in the case of low relief, coastal ecosystems. The scientific
community has concluded that future experiments will be most realistic
and useful if they are (1) conducted at ecosystem scales; (2) address
multi-factor environmental changes; (3) include multi-level treatments;
and (4) integrate with process modeling during conceptualization,
operation, and following the completion of experiments.
New research to understand climate change impacts must be
conceptually relevant to many ecosystems, and therefore provide
mechanistic outputs translatable across ecosystems. New research on
carbon cycle feedbacks from ecosystems should prioritize spatially
extensive high-latitude ecosystems and tropical forested regions with a
correspondingly large potential to impact the Earth's climate (e.g.,
boreal and arctic biomes, and wet tropical forests of Latin and South
America, Africa, and southeast Asia).
The DOE National Environmental Research Parks are distributed
across the United States in a wide variety of ecosystems, from
deciduous and pine forests in the east to arid ecosystems in the west.
These research parks provide protected land areas appropriate for
conducting climate change manipulations and for measuring ecosystem
functions under changing environmental conditions. DOE-managed federal
lands represent an important resource for research. For example, the
National Ecological Observation Network of the National Science
Foundation has identified the Oak Ridge Reservation as a core wild land
site for their planned long-term measurements of environmental change.
Long-term observations of pine mortality on the Los Alamos Reservation
have also provided insights into plausible climate change implications
(i.e., drought exacerbated under climate change may force mortality of
important species).
Several globally extensive biomes associated with priority carbon
cycle feedback questions (defined above) are not, however, represented
within DOE's NERP network. In those cases, it will be necessary for DOE
to partner with other land owners (such as other federal agencies,
states, and private landholders) to develop and conduct the necessary
experiments and measurements to advance the science of climate change.
To conclude:
By funding multi-disciplinary science at national laboratories and
universities, the DOE Office of Science plays a dominant role in the
support of terrestrial ecosystem studies to understand the fate and
function of global land surfaces and their role in the Earth system.
The scientific community looks to the Office of Science for guidance
and necessary support to enable complex next-generation experiments and
measurement systems.
Only through the development of an integrated understanding of
multiple, interacting environmental effects can the scientific
community generate appropriate prognostic models to inform Congress and
the public about the capacity of our ecosystems to provide goods and
services for society under projected rapid rates of climate change.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony. I am pleased to
answer any questions.
References:
Dickinson RE, Meehl GA, et al. (2008) Identifying Outstanding Grand
Challenges in Climate Change Research: Guiding DOE's Strategic
Planning. A report of the DOE/BERAC Workshop, 25-27 March 2008,
Crystal City, Virginia available at http://www.sc.doe.gov/ober/
berac/Grand-Challenges-Report.pdf
Ehleringer J, Birdsey R, Ceulemans R, Melillo J, Nosberger J, Oechel W,
Trumbore SE (2006) Report of the BERAC Subcommittee Reviewing
the FACE and OTC Elevated CO2 Projects in DOE. White
paper report submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy, 16
October 2006, 23 p. available at http://www.sc.doe.gov/ober/
berac/FACE-2006-report.pdf
Hanson PJ, Classen A, Kueppers L, Luo Y, McDowell NG, Morris J, Rogers
A, Thornton P, Ceulemans R, Dukes J, Goulden M, Jackson R,
Knapp A, Kirschbaum M, Lewin K, MacCracken M, Melillo J,
Ringler T, and Workshop Participants (2008) Ecosystem
Experiments: Understanding Climate Change Impacts on Ecosystems
and Feedbacks to the Physical Climate. A community white paper
workshop report available at http://per.ornl.gov/
Experiment-Workshop-Report-16Ju
ne08.pdf or http://www.sc.doe.gov/ober/
Ecosystem%20Experiments.pdf
National Research Council of the National Academies (NRC) (2007)
Understanding Multiple Environmental Stresses: Report of a
Workshop. Committee on Earth-Atmosphere Interactions:
Understanding and Responding to Multiple Environmental
Stresses, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Division
on Earth and Life Studies, The National Academies Press,
Washington, D.C., 142 p.
DOE WWW Resources:
DOE, Office of Science
http://www.sc.doe.gov
Climate and Environmental Sciences Division
http://www.sc.doe.gov/ober/CCRD-top.html
Program for Ecosystem Research (PER)
http://www.sc.doe.gov/ober/CCRD/per.html
Terrestrial Carbon Processes (TCP) program
http://www.sc.doe.gov/ober/CCRD/tcp.html
National Environmental Research Parks
http://www.nerp.ornl.gov/index.html
National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)
http://www.neoninc.org/domains/appalachians
Biography for Paul J. Hanson
Dr. Paul J. Hanson is a Distinguished Research and Development
Staff Member of the Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He graduated summa cum laude with a
B.A. degree in biology from St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud,
Minnesota, in 1981. Dr. Hanson also received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees
from the University of Minnesota, St. Paul in the fields of plant and
forest tree physiology, in 1983 and 1986, respectively. Dr. Hanson's
current research focuses on the impacts of climatic change on the
physiology, growth, and biogeochemical cycles of eastern deciduous
forest ecosystems. Dr. Hanson has also conducted research on the
impacts of air pollutant oxidants on forest plant physiology and growth
(ozone and hydrogen peroxide), the deposition of gaseous nitrogen
compounds to plant surfaces, and the exchange of mercury vapor between
terrestrial surfaces and the atmosphere. He has authored or co-authored
over 100 journal articles and book chapters, and has co-edited (and
authored) a book titled ``North American Temperate Deciduous Forest
Responses to Changing Precipitation Regimes'' published in 2003 as
volume 166 of the Springer Ecological Studies series. Dr. Hanson is
actively serving as an Editor of Global Change Biology, and in the
advisory position of Chief Scientist for the U.S. Department of
Energy's Program for Ecosystem Research. Dr. Hanson previously served
as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Environmental Quality (1995-
2000), and was a member of the Editorial Review Board of Tree
Physiology from 1994 to 2004. He was a member of the U.S. Department of
Energy's National Technical Advisory Committee for the National
Institute of Global Environmental Change (NIGEC) from 2002 to 2004, and
has served on a number of peer-review panels for the evaluation of
scientific proposals. Dr. Hanson received the 1995 Distinguished
Scientific Achievement Award from the Environmental Sciences Division,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and was elected a Fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science in 2008.
Chair Baird. Thank you, Dr. Hanson.
Dr. Bader.
STATEMENT OF DR. DAVID C. BADER, PROGRAM MANAGER FOR CLIMATE
CHANGE RESEARCH, OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY
Dr. Bader. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Inglis and Members of
the Committee, thank you for inviting me to address the
Committee and provide my perspective on the Department of
Energy Office of Science's Climate Change Research Program. My
name is David Bader, and I am the newly appointed Manager for
Climate Change Research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
supported by the Office of Science. From June 2003 until last
Friday, I was the Director of the Program for Climate Model
Diagnosis and Intercomparison at Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory.
The PCMDI is part of the Department of Energy's Climate
Change Prediction Program and it pioneered the concept of
standardized climate model experiments which have been a major
factor in the scientific advancement of climate models over the
last 20 years. Most recently, PCMDI established and maintained
the international global climate model output archive for the
Fourth Assessment Report for the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change published in 2007.
In the past, only researchers with access to modeling
centers were able to utilize climate model results in their
work. Now, several thousand users are able to download and
analyze the output from all the world's major modeling groups
from a single location in a standardized format.
Prior to joining Lawrence Livermore, I spent over 12 years
in various roles helping to plan, organize and manage climate
modeling programs for the Office of Science, coincidentally as
a member of Pacific Northwest Laboratory in Richland,
Washington. In addition, I worked with leaders of the modeling
programs in other federal agencies, particularly NASA, NOAA and
NSF to develop a national climate modeling strategy as part of
the Climate Change Science Program Strategic Plan published in
2003. From these experiences, I gained valuable perspectives on
the importance of climate modeling, simulation and prediction
in preparing the Nation and the world for the future.
Furthermore, I developed an appreciation for the critical roles
in national and international modeling enterprise at the Office
of Science Program and the national laboratory system plays.
Climate models have successfully answered many questions
regarding the role of human activities in climate change.
Recent simulations of the observed climate over the 20th
century are far superior to those of just a few years ago.
Although imperfect, climate models offer the only tools to
quantitatively estimate future climate variability and change.
There is unanimous agreement among all the models that
significant further global warming is likely over the next
several decades through the end of the century under all
reasonable greenhouse gas emission scenarios. The amount of
projected warming, however, varies substantially among models.
Moreover, there is considerable disagreement among the models
as to how global-scale temperature changes will be manifested
as changes in precipitation on regional and local scales where
most impacts are experienced that must be dealt with.
The demands for new information from climate simulations
and predictions far exceed the skill of the current generation
of models. Climate simulation and prediction is required by the
Department of Energy as it evaluates alternative energy
technology options to mitigate climate change many decades into
the future. The science community must quantify, understand and
reduce these uncertainties so that both near-term and long-term
decisions can be guided with confidence.
We are on the verge of transformational changes in climate
simulation and prediction which we realize by a combination of
enhanced understanding of how the climate system operates and
the advent of Exascale Computing. This requires not only
investment of dollars but also a rethinking of the
organizational paradigms that develop and apply climate models.
Vast knowledge and understanding has been and continues to be
gained from investments in observational programs, particularly
ARM and the carbon cycle programs at the Department of Energy.
Tremendous potential exists to improve prediction capabilities
through the integration of this knowledge with increasing
computer power such as the current and future systems at the
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Leadership Computing Facility
supported by the Office of Science.
Several key elements are needed to continue a vibrant
climate modeling enterprise in the Office of Science. First,
climate modeling is one of the most complex simulation problems
in science. It requires a correct representation of highly
interactive processes across a broad range of time and space
scales. Future models must be developed by multi-disciplinary
teams of climate researchers and computational scientists
supported to achieve a common purpose. They will construct new
models to be run on tomorrow's computers.
Second, it must be recognized that climate model
development, evaluation and application occurs simultaneously.
While a new generation of models typically appears every five
years, some aspects take much longer to complete.
Finally, as it was demonstrated in the IPCC assessment, no
single model is best in all respects and the community
continues to need the results of multiple modeling groups to
best understand climate changes, particularly at local and
regional scales. As it turns out, the best representation is
the average of all the models. The Nation benefits from having
multiple groups, including those supported by the Office of
Science.
Thank you for this opportunity. I am willing to take any
questions that you have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Bader follows:]
Prepared Statement of David C. Bader
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Inglis, and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for inviting me to address the Committee and provide my
perspective Department of Energy, Office of Science's Climate Change
Research Program.
My name is David Bader and I am the newly-appointed manager for the
Climate Change Research Program supported at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory by the DOE Office of Science.
From June 2003 until June 5 of this year, I was the Director of the
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) at
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The PCMDI is part of the
Department of Energy's Climate Change Prediction Program. Program for
Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison pioneered the concept of
standardized climate model experiments, which has been a major factor
in the scientific advancement of climate models over the last 20 years.
Most recently, PCMDI established and maintained the international
global climate model output archive for the Fourth Assessment Report of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published in 2007.
Through the definition of standardized experiments and imposition of
data standards, this archive revolutionized the use of climate model
results by the international climate research community. Whereas in the
past, only the researchers with access to the modeling centers were
able to utilize climate model results in their work, several thousand
users now are able to download and analyze the output from all of the
world's major modeling groups from a single location in a standardized
format. The IPCC has recognized the significance of this
transformational activity by stating in its most recent Assessment,
``In particular we wish to acknowledge the enormous commitment by the
individuals and agencies of 14 climate modeling groups from around the
world, as well as the archiving and distribution of an unprecedented
amount (over 30 Terabytes) of climate model output by the Program for
Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI). This has enabled a
more detailed comparison among current climate models and a more
comprehensive assessment of the potential nature of long term climate
change than ever before.''
Prior to joining Lawrence Livermore, I spent over 12 years in
various roles helping to plan, organize and manage climate modeling
programs for the Office of Science. In addition, I worked with leaders
of modeling programs in other federal agencies, particularly NASA, NOAA
and NSF, to develop a national climate modeling strategy as part of the
Climate Change Science Program Strategic Plan published in 2003. From
these experiences, I gained valuable perspectives on the importance of
climate modeling, simulation and prediction, in preparing the Nation
and the world for the future. Furthermore, I developed an appreciation
for the critical roles in the national and international modeling
enterprise that the Office of Science program and the national
laboratory system play.
As documented in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program Synthesis
and Assessment Report 3.1, ``Climate Models: An Assessment of Strengths
and Limitations,'' (for which I was convening lead author) models have
successfully answered many questions regarding the role of human
activities in global climate change. Recent simulations of the observed
climate over the twentieth century are far superior to those of just a
few years ago.
Although imperfect, climate models offer the only tools to
quantitatively estimate future climate variability and change. Figure 1
below was taken from the most recent IPCC Assessment. It shows
unanimous agreement among all models that significant further global
warming is likely over the next several decades through the end of the
century under all reasonable greenhouse gas emission scenarios. The
amount of projected warming, however, varies substantially among
models. Moreover, there is considerable disagreement among models as to
how global scale temperature changes will be manifested as changes in
precipitation on regional and local scales, where most impacts will be
experienced and must be addressed (Fig. 2).
The demands for new information from climate simulations and
predictions far exceed the skill of the current generation of models.
Climate simulation and prediction is required by DOE as it evaluates
alternative technology options to mitigate climate change many decades
into the future. The science community must quantify, understand, and
reduce these uncertainties so that both near-term and long-term
decisions can be guided with confidence.
We are on the verge of transformational changes in climate
simulation and prediction, which will be realized by the combination of
enhanced understanding of how the climate system operates and the
advent of Exascale computing capability. This requires not only the
investment of dollars, but also a rethinking of the organizational
paradigms that develop and apply climate models. Vast knowledge and
understanding has been and continues to be gained from investments in
observational programs and research studies. Tremendous potential
exists to improve the prediction capabilities of models through the
integration of this knowledge with increasing computational power, such
as the current and future systems at the ORNL Leadership Computing
Facility supported by the Office of Science.
Major advancements will come from increasing the spatial resolution
of models so that they more accurately simulate small scale atmospheric
and oceanic phenomena, such as tropical cyclones and mesoscale
convective complexes, that are critical to predicting not only changes
in mean climate, but also to correctly predicting the probability of
damaging events like floods and hurricanes. Unlike current climate
models, the coming generation of models include explicit biogeochemical
cycles to examine feedbacks between climate change and carbon sources
and sinks. The Office of Science continues to invest in the Atmospheric
Radiation Measurement (ARM) program and carbon cycle observational and
experimental programs necessary to inform the development of these
Earth System models. The challenge for the Office of Science is to
accelerate the translation of knowledge gained in these programs into
more realistic and accurate global models capable of projecting changes
over many decades and centuries.
Transforming climate prediction by integrating knowledge with
computational power cannot be achieved through reductionist approaches.
In an unprecedented multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary
partnership, DOE laboratory computational scientists, in collaboration
with Warren Washington at the National Center for Atmospheric Research,
pioneered the use of massively parallel computing systems for climate
simulation in the 1990s to produce the DOE Parallel Computing Model.
The legacy of the collaboration continues today. The DOE Climate Change
Prediction Program supports an interagency partnership to develop and
apply the Community Climate System Model (CCSM), one of the three U.S.
modeling groups contributing to the last IPCC Assessment. Department of
Energy laboratory scientists are integral to the development of key
pieces of the modeling system, including the ocean, sea ice and
terrestrial carbon cycle components. Major climate change simulations
using the CCSM are run on the Office of Science computing facilities at
Oak Ridge and Berkeley. The emphasis today, however, has devolved to
improvement of the pieces, and the vision for the next generations of
climate models has been somewhat lost.
Several key elements are needed to continue a vibrant climate
modeling enterprise in the Office of Science. First, climate modeling
is one of the most complex simulation problems in science. It requires
the correct representation of highly interactive processes across a
broad range of time and space scales. Future models will be developed
by multi-disciplinary teams of climate researchers and computational
scientists supported to achieve a common purpose. They will construct
new models that can be run on tomorrow's Exascale computers. This
computational power additionally will allow us to employ advanced
mathematical and statistical techniques for uncertainty quantification
practiced in other fields to better understand predictability limits of
models.
Second, it must be recognized that climate model development,
evaluation and application all occur simultaneously. While a new
generation of models typically appears every five years, some aspects
of model development take much longer to complete. This puts a
tremendous strain on all of the elements of the modeling community. The
long-term commitment to maintain a core infrastructure of people and
computational capabilities is needed to support such an enterprise. The
resources and capabilities of the national laboratory system meet those
needs, but cooperation among the laboratories requires a common
direction and purpose articulated by the Office of Science program
management.
Last, as was demonstrated in the IPCC Assessment, no single model
is the best in all respects and the community continues to need the
results of multiple modeling groups to best understand potential
climate changes, particularly at local and regional scales. As it turns
out, the best representation of current climate is achieved by
averaging the results from all of the models participating in the
coordinated experiments. The Nation benefits from having multiple
groups, including the CCSM partnership supported by the Office of
Science.
In the past, the Office of Science executed a successful climate
modeling strategy by providing long-term support for teams of
researchers from its national laboratories and academic stable of
investigators. Continued support will lead to even greater success.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and Members of the Committee for
the opportunity to appear today. I would be pleased to answer any
questions you may have.
Biography for David C. Bader
EDUCATION
1985 Ph.D., Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University
1981 MS, Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University
1979 BS (with Distinction), Engineering Science, Colorado State
University
POSITIONS
2009-present, Program Manager, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
2003-2009, Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
1992-2003, Project Manager at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
(PNNL)
1985-1992, Research Scientist/Senior Research Scientist at PNNL
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
David C. Bader is the Manager for the DOE Office of Biological and
Environmental Research's climate research programs at Oak Ridge
National Laboratory. From June 2003 until June 2009, he was the
Director, Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison,
which coordinates major international climate model evaluation and
intercomparison activities for the World Climate Research Program. He
is also Chief Scientist for the U.S. Department of Energy's Climate
Change Prediction Program. From 1990 to 2002, he developed and managed
climate modeling and computational research programs for DOE's Office
of Science, and was the agency's principal representative for climate
research and climate modeling to interagency working groups and
committees. He was a lead author of the interagency U.S. Climate Change
Science Program Strategic Plan Chapter 10 on Modeling Strategy, and in
2001 was Chairman of the interagency Climate Change Research Initiative
(CCRI) Working Group on Climate Modeling. He was the U.S. Government
review coordinator of the climate model evaluation chapters in the
Working Group I contributions to the IPCC Second Assessment Report and
Third Assessment Report.
SYNERGISTIC ACTIVITIES
2008-present--Member of CCSM Scientific Steering Committee
2008-present--Member of the AMS Committee on Applied Climatology
2006-2008--Convening Lead Author Climate Change Science Program
Synthesis and Assessment Report 3.1 Climate Models: An
Assessment of Strengths and Limitations for User Applications
2007--Joint Subcommittee, DOE Office of Biological and Environmental
Research and Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research
Advisory Committees
2005-2007--NRC Committee on Archiving Environmental and Geospatial Data
at NOAA
2004-2005--NASA Advanced Modeling and Simulation Capability Roadmap
Committee
2004--Global Change Subcommittee, DOE Office of Science Biological and
Environmental Research Advisory Committee
2003--NSF Steering Committee for Cyberinfrastructure Research and
Development in the Atmospheric Sciences
2000--Member of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Ad Hoc Working Group on Climate Modeling, which prepared the
report High-end Climate Science: Development of Modeling and
Related Computing Capabilities for the U.S. Global Change
Research Program.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Caldwell, P., H.S. Chin, D.C. Bader and G. Bala, 2009: Evaluation of a
WRF Dynamical Downscaling Simulation over California,
``Climatic Change,'' (in press).
Climate Models: An Assessment of Strengths and Limitations. A Report by
the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on
Global Change Research [Bader D.C., C. Covey, W.J. Gutowski
Jr., I.M. Held, K.E. Kunkel, R.L. Miller, R.T. Tokmakian and
M.H. Zhang (Authors)]. Department of Energy, Office of
Biological and Environmental Research, Washington, D.C., USA,
124 pp.
Bala, G., R.B. Rood, D. Bader, A. Mirin, D. Ivanova, and C. Drui
(2008), Simulated climate near steep topography: Sensitivity to
numerical methods for atmospheric transport, Geophys. Res.
Lett., 35, L14807, doi:10.1029/2008GL033204.
Bala, G., R.B. Rood, A. Mirin, J. McClean, K. Achutarao, D. Bader, P.
Gleckler, R. Neale, and P. Rasch, 2008: Evaluation of a CCSM3
Simulation with a Finite Volume Dynamical Core for the
Atmosphere at 1+ Latitude 1.25+
Longitude Resolution. J. Climate, 21, 1467-1486.
Phillips, T.J., K. Achutarao, D. Bader, C. Covey, C.M. Doutriaux, M.
Fiorino, P.J. Gleckler, K.R. Sperber and K.E. Taylor. 2006. ``
Coupled Climate Model Appraisal: A Benchmark for Future
Studies.'' Eos, Trans. AGU. 87:185, 191-193.
Covey, C., P.J. Gleckler, T.J. Phillips, D.C. Bader. 2006. ``Secular
Trends and Climate Drift in Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere General
Circulation Models.'' J. Geophys. Res. (Atmos.) 111, D03107,
doi: 10.1029/2005JD06009.
Bader, D., A. Bamzai, J. Fein, A. Patrinos and M. Leinen. 2005. ``The
Community Climate System Model Project from an Interagency
Perspective.'' Eos, Trans. AGU. 86:309-310.
Chair Baird. Thank you, Dr. Bader.
Dr. McDowell.
STATEMENT OF DR. NATHAN G. MCDOWELL, STAFF SCIENTIST AND
DIRECTOR OF THE LOAS ALAMOS ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH PARK, LOS
ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
Dr. McDowell. Good morning, Chairman Baird, Ranking Member
Inglis and Members of the Subcommittee. My name is Nate
McDowell and I am a Staff Member at Los Alamos National
Laboratory and Director of our Environmental Research Park. I
am honored to join my colleagues to speak with you today
regarding the strategic value of these parks to the Department
of Energy and to the Nation. Although I have only been a staff
member at Los Alamos since 2004, I have published over 40
papers, approximately one-third of which were derived directly
from research done at the Environmental Research Park at Los
Alamos.
There are three points I would like to highlight for the
Subcommittee today. First, what are the Environmental Research
Parks? You have already summarized it but I will briefly go
over it. They were established between 1972 and 1992 across the
DOE complex. The charter of the parks is to assess, monitor and
predict the environmental impact of human energy use and other
human activities. Research at the parks includes measuring
terrestrial ecosystem processes such as carbon and water
cycling, testing ecosystem management options, monitoring of
endangered species, virus threats, pollution and hydrology,
just to name a few.
Second, why are these research parks important today? I
would like to highlight this with an example from Los Alamos.
When I first arrived in Los Alamos, the view outside of my
office window was of a landscape full of dead and dying pine
trees. In fact, we observed 97 percent mortality rate at the
Los Alamos Research Park following a drought that has been
labeled as a climate change-type drought because it was a
particularly warm drought, a particularly wet and warm drought.
Though everyone knows that drought and beetles combine to kill
trees, no one could actually explain to me which trees will die
and which ones won't, and no one could predict when this will
happen again in the future or where it will happen. This
challenge remains true today, particularly because there are an
increasing number of observations throughout the world of
increasing mortality rates of forests and there is increasing
concern that the mortality will be exacerbated by climate
change such as warming and drying.
Though the mortality event was depressing for people
throughout the Southwest, we were fortunate at Los Alamos that
the scientists had maintained measurements of the impact of
climate on pine trees for over a decade preceding the mortality
event, allowing rapid detection of the onset of the mortality
and the first ever documentation of how trees die. These
globally novel observations spawned new research supported by
DOE's Office of Biological and Environmental Research. This new
research is devoted ultimately to improving models of climate
change. If those long-term measurements had not existed, we
would be far behind our current understanding of tree death.
Third, why are the National Environmental Research Parks
the right place for research regarding greenhouse gases and the
impacts of climate on ecosystems? There is a multitude of
reasons. To name a few, they are located throughout the United
States in regions that are representative of large areas of the
world. This can allow the results to be meaningful and policy
relevant. Due to our already strong collaborations, the
research parks complement existing efforts throughout America
such as those at NOAA, AmeriFlux and DOE's climate change
programs. They have the rare combination of protected
landscapes and existing infrastructure for continuous
observations and for large-scale experiments such as
manipulations of rainfall to simulate drought. The parks have
enabled extremely long-term data sets that allow us to capture
extreme events and to detect long-term trends versus short-term
variability, the baseline you referenced earlier. And finally,
the parks already have educational programs in place for
students of all ages, K to 12 to graduate school, enabling us
to educate the next generation of scientists and the public as
well.
In conclusion, the National Environmental Research Parks
are a valuable yet underutilized network of sites that can be
used as part of an early warning network for ecological
impacts. The parks can also be applied to develop techniques to
detect greenhouse gas emissions and to conduct fundamental
research in line with the original research parks charter.
I applaud the Subcommittee's efforts to establish a
mechanism for sustained funding for the parks. I would be
pleased to answer any questions you have. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. McDowell follows:]
Prepared Statement of Nathan G. McDowell
Introduction:
Good morning Chairman Baird, Ranking Member Inglis, and Members of
the Subcommittee. I am honored to speak with you today regarding the
strategic value of the Department of Energy's (DOE) National
Environmental Research Parks (NERP). I am Nate McDowell, a staff
scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Director of the
Los Alamos Environmental Research Park. To date, LANL has produced 130
peer-reviewed scientific publications based on research conducted at
the Los Alamos Environmental Research Park, including many that were
high impact largely because they included long-term data sets that
captured extreme climatic events.
I obtained my Ph.D. in Tree Physiology from Oregon State
University's College of Forestry in 2002, my M.Sc. in Ecosystem
Processes from the University of Idaho's College of Natural Resources
in 1998, and my B.Sc. in Biology from the University of Michigan in
1994. During these formative years, I learned to think critically about
the fundamental regulation of ecosystem function in response to
management methods and climate. In the five years that I have been a
staff scientist at LANL, my research focus has grown to consider
ecosystems from the perspective of national security, in which
sustained ecosystem productivity is a critical resource.
A key piece of my research deals with the theory, instrumentation
and models needed to monitor and understand how CO2 moves in
and out of an ecosystem. I created and am also the Director of the Los
Alamos Tunable Diode Laser Facility located within our Environmental
Research Park. This unique Facility is devoted to monitoring and
understanding the exchange of carbon dioxide between terrestrial
ecosystems and the atmosphere in response to climate variability. The
laser measures the isotopic composition of CO2 exchanged by
the plants (Bickford et al., 2009), animals (Engle et al., 2009) and
ecosystems we study (McDowell et al., 2008a), allowing us to trace the
source and cause of shifts in carbon storage. For example, if an
ecosystem undergoes a large emission of CO2, we can
determine why this has occurred. Likewise, we employ our laser facility
to determine if specific CO2 emissions come from biological
or from fossil fuel sources; this application may help address a huge
technological challenge that lies ahead for any global cap and trade
verification system. My team has built strong collaborations with
others studying climate impacts, including over 20 academic
institutions, other National Laboratories, the Environmental Protection
Agency, the Forest Service and the Agricultural Research Service. Our
rate and quality of publications is currently undergoing a dramatic
rise due to support from DOE's Office of Science-Office of Biological
and Environmental Research and to the growing societal urgency
associated with understanding and predicting climate impacts on
terrestrial ecosystems.
My testimony will focus on the pressing need to quantify,
understand, predict, and manage the response of terrestrial ecosystems
to climate, and on the value of the National Environmental Research
Parks as an essential American resource for understanding these
impacts.
What are the National Environmental Research Parks? The National
Environmental Research Parks were formally created in the 1970's
following passage of the National Environmental Policy Act (1969). As
specified by the Department of Energy in 1976, the charter of the
Environmental Research Parks is to assess, monitor and predict the
environmental impact of energy use and other human activities.
Scientists within the Research Parks are expected to develop methods
for observation, experimentation, and prediction of environmental
impacts, to inform the public of their results, and to train future
environmental scientists. Lastly, the Parks are intended to improve
access to non-federal researchers while capitalizing on the protected
nature of the DOE land holdings. Current and past research at the Parks
includes not only measuring terrestrial ecosystem processes such as
carbon and water cycling, but also determining ecosystem management
options, and monitoring of endangered species, animal dynamics, virus
threats, pollution and hydrology (Dale and Parr, 1998).
Nearly all of the Parks have formal educational components. At Los
Alamos, there are numerous K-12, undergraduate and graduate programs
that capitalize on the Research Park for exposing students to
environmental science, such as geology, carbon cycling, and climate.
There are specific programs directed towards undergraduates, high
school students, minorities and Native Americans. Los Alamos staff
scientists frequently donate their time to these programs.
Additionally, numerous student interns conduct research within the Park
under staff supervision each year.
The Research Parks are located in six major vegetative zones,
representative of over half of the American landscape (Figure 1). The
Research Parks contain large swaths of land--they are five times larger
than the National Science Foundation's Long-Term Ecological Research
sites (NSF-LTER)--making replication and large scale experiments
possible to ensure that the results are meaningful to larger areas.
Their large size and broad coverage of both vegetation and climate
types allow experimental results to be extrapolated, with care, to much
larger areas of the Earth, as might be necessary for monitoring of
greenhouse gases and carbon offsets associated with verification of
carbon trading and international treaties. Their value as test beds for
sensing and prediction of greenhouse gas emissions and terrestrial
impacts cannot be over-stated: their lands are protected, they have
long-term data sets that capture climate impacts, and they are flexible
to experimental manipulations similar to those conducted by DOE's
Program for Ecosystem Research and Terrestrial Carbon Process Program
(e.g., altering climate change factors such as precipitation,
temperature, atmospheric CO2 to determine the ecosystem
impacts, or conducting mitigation experiments such as sustainable
forest thinning). It is rare that such protected, yet scientifically
important land areas, are available for testing monitoring tools for
use in denied or hostile territories, or for testing new theories for
climate modeling.
The National Environmental Research Parks have long-term records
that are unprecedented in length. These include stream hydrology, soil
carbon, and vegetation dynamics records at Oak Ridge; avian virus,
isotopic CO2 exchange, and vegetation water stress and
mortality at Los Alamos; grassland rehabilitation studies at Fermi; and
numerous other long-term data streams at the four other parks. Notably,
the Parks have unique access to skilled scientists with state-of-the-
art instrumentation and analysis tools, providing a technical advantage
in gathering data and knowledge not available in most countries.
The current threat: The terrestrial impacts of our changing climate
are occurring across the Earth in novel, dramatic, and often
irreversible ways. These impacts include regional-scale vegetation
mortality, changing carbon storage and water availability, and reduced
lumber and food production. Human impacts are already widespread and
are expected to become both more common and severe globally. Our
understanding of these threats has increased dramatically in the last
decade due in part to the leadership of DOE's Office of Science-Office
of Biological and Environmental Research scientific programs.
A drastic example of climate impacts on terrestrial ecosystems can
be seen by looking no further than outside my office window at the
semi-arid woodland that covers much of the Los Alamos Environmental
Research Park. In 2002, pinon pine trees died throughout the
southwestern United States following a 12-month drought that was
considered unusually warm as is consistent with global warming
(Breshears et al., 2005). At the Los Alamos Park, the mortality rate
exceeded 97 percent (Figure 2). The rash of dead trees drew significant
attention within the region, as many of my neighbors lamented the loss
of their favorite trees from their yards, not to mention the economic
impacts on commodity production and tourism.
From a scientific perspective, we were fortunate that scientists at
the Los Alamos Environmental Research Park had sustained long term
water stress and hydrology observations for over a decade proceeding
the mortality event, allowing us the first-ever documentation of how
trees die (Breshears et al., 2009). In short, trees were unable to
photosynthesize for 12 continuous months because of severe water
stress, forcing them to starve for carbon. Subsequently they had no
resources left for defense against beetle attack. This is similar to
starving humans who are often unable to fight off a simple cold virus.
This research is critical because during the period of carbon
starvation the forests are not absorbing carbon and thus are no longer
functioning as a carbon sink. In addition, once trees die they begin
releasing carbon back into the atmosphere through the decomposition
process.
From the long-term data at Los Alamos we developed the first
testable theory regarding the exact causes of tree mortality (McDowell
et al., 2008b). We are now testing this theory via a large scale
drought manipulation experiment supported by DOE's Program for
Ecosystem Research and are examining the consequence of mortality on
carbon storage and water yield via DOE's Experimental Program to
Stimulate Experimental Research (EPSCoR) as part of the AmeriFlux
program. We are also testing the new theory for integration into the
Community Climate System Model (a joint project funded by DOE and the
National Science Foundation, www.ccsm.ucar.edu) for global climate
prediction.
But the southwestern pinon pine mortality was only the proverbial
canary in the coal mine: catastrophic mortality events are now being
observed throughout western North America (Allen et al., in review).
These regional die-off's are now altering some of America's most
cherished places, such as the Colorado Rockies and Yellowstone National
Park, where entire mountainsides of pine trees are turning brown.
Perhaps even more disturbing is the subtle but insidious doubling of
mortality from one to two percent in apparently healthy forests over
the last three decades (van Mentegm et al., 2009). Though less graphic
than the catastrophic die-off's, this doubling of mortality in
apparently healthy forests may be a precursor of worse things to come.
Notably, increased mortality has also been revealed in wetter areas
that are expected to be more resilient, such as at the Oak Ridge
Research Park in the Appalachian Mountains (Kardol et al., in review).
Again, the increase in forest mortality rates reduces the amount of
atmospheric carbon that can be absorbed and stored by forests over the
long-term.
The challenge: The science challenges are clear: we must understand
the changing climate and its impacts on terrestrial systems well enough
that we can predict over the next decades what will happen to
terrestrial resources such as crop yields, carbon storage,
productivity, and water quality. Importantly, this understanding and
prediction must be done at regional scales relevant to policy-makers.
Furthermore, the United States needs a regionally distributed early-
warning network of climate impacts. For example, we can presently
anticipate weather with near-realtime predictions based on a network of
weather measurements that feed data into predictive models. Modelers
are also making great advances in predicting weather and climate in the
upcoming weeks to seasons, which may allow society to plan for events
such as heat waves and droughts. We have no such early warning system
for climate impacts on ecosystems. The scientists and their associated
technology, models, and research sites at both the National
Environmental Research Parks and elsewhere, are already available and
amenable to development of just this early-warning network for
terrestrial impacts.
The Environmental Research Parks are an ideal, yet underutilized
network of sites located throughout America that can be used as part of
an early warning network, for testing remote techniques for detecting
impacts and greenhouse gas emissions, and for conducting fundamental
research in line with the original Research Park charter.
Unfortunately, they have no formalized funding source, and thus they
have only really been used when individual investigators have been able
to obtain grants to support work on the Park lands. Thus, there are
only rare data sets that have been maintained over sufficiently long
time periods to capture extreme climate events and to differentiate
short-term variability from long-term trends. Likewise, no integration
across parks has occurred, preventing us from determining how
ecosystems and their inhabitants respond to climate variation across
regions.
Recommendations: It is essential that we have a network of sites
for early detection of climate impacts on ecosystems and for testing
tools that monitor greenhouse gas emissions and terrestrial impacts. If
the National Environmental Research Parks were employed with this
charge, they could become a leading entity in the new generation of
science in which we not only learn more fundamental science, but also
develop and apply tools for verifying international treaties, for
predicting consequences on our own soil, and for developing mitigation
options. Such a network should be used to build upon existing efforts
such as NSF-LTER sites, the AmeriFlux network, which monitors
CO2, water and energy exchanges, NOAA's Cooperative Air
Sampling Network, USDA's Forest Inventory Analyses and Natural
Resources Inventory, which monitor biomass and soil carbon throughout
the United States, as well as with existing and future remote sensing
tools supported by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Lab. Likewise,
capitalizing on existing data management networks, for example, with
the North American Carbon Program, is essential.
Support of the Research Parks should be a long-term priority.
Decadal-length monitoring is essential for capturing extreme climate
events as well as chronic warming. Like fine wines, the few long-term
data sets that exist globally have all increased in value with each
passing year as they reveal climate change impacts that were not
detectable in only three years, the normal proposal funding cycle.
The long-term efforts must include experimental manipulations, such
as those supported by DOE-Office of Science. Altering CO2,
rainfall, and temperature over entire ecosystems allows us to see
ecosystem response to climate changes that will occur in the future.
The manipulations are essential for predicting the response of
ecosystems to changes we expect to occur in the next 20 to 50 years.
Like long-term observations, these experiments must be decadal in
length. For example, in my Office of Science funded study, we are
altering rainfall to simulate climate change and determine why trees
die and what happens to the ecosystem afterwards, and have found that
trees are just starting to die after three years, which is the end of a
typical funding cycle. Three years is not sufficient for most ecosystem
scale observational or experimental studies of climate change impacts.
Ideally, this research must be integrated spatially and across
disciplines. The challenge is complex and exists at multiple scales.
Rising air temperature impacts plants at the cellular level, yet it
manifests at the tree, landscape, and global scales that affect humans.
Observations and experimentation must be integrated with models, such
as the Community Climate System Model, if we are to advance our
understanding and our forecast accuracy. Only then will our effort be
relevant to the American public.
We are at a critical turning point. We know that climate is
changing, and we know that terrestrial ecosystems are being impacted.
We now have the theory, tools and models to make rapid advances in our
ability to forecast impacts that are relevant to human populations. We
simply need to integrate these tools and apply them within and beyond
the Research Parks.
Thank you for this opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee.
Relevant websites
McDowell Lab at Los Alamos National Laboratory:
http://climateresearch.lanl.gov/
DOE EPSCoR Program:
http://www.er.doe.gov/bes/EPSCoR/index.html
DOE Program for Ecosystem Research:
http://per.ornl.gov/
DOE Terrestrial Carbon Process Program:
http://www.er.doe.gov/OBER/CCRD/tcp.html
Community Climate System Model:
http://www.ccsm.ucar.edu/
References
Allen, CD, A Macalady, H Chenchouni, D Bachelet, N McDowell, M
Vennetier, P Gonzales, T Hogg, A Rigling, D Breshears, R
Fensham, Z Zhang, T Kitzberger, J Lim, J Castro, G Allard, S
Running, A Semerci, N Cobb. Climate-induced forest mortality: a
global overview of emerging risks. Forest Ecology and
Management, in review.
Bickford CP, McDowell NG, Eberhardt EB, Hanson DT. High resolution
field measurements of diurnal carbon isotope discrimination and
internal conductance in a semi-arid species, Juniperus
monosperma. Plant, Cell and Environment, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-
3040.2009.01959.x
Breshears DD, Cobb NS, Rich PM, Price KP, Allen CD, Balice RG, Romme
WH, Kastens JH, Floyd ML, Belnap J, Anderson JJ, Myers OB,
Meyer CW. 2005. Regional vegetation die-off in response to
global-change-type drought. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102:15144-
15148.
Breshears DD, OB Myers, CW Meyer, FJ Barnes, CB Zou, CD Allen, NG
McDowell, WT Pockman. 2009. Tree die-off in response to global-
change-type drought: mortality insights from a decade of plant
water potential measurements. Frontiers in Ecology and
Environment, 7, doi:10.1890/080016.
Dale VH, Parr PD. 1998. Preserving DOE's Research Parks. Issues in
Science and Technology, Vol. XIV, 73-77.
Engel S, HM Lease, NG McDowell, BO Wolf. Resource use by a grasshopper
community quantified using tunable diode laser spectroscopy to
measure breath d13C. Rapid Communications in Mass
Spectrometry, in press.
Hanson, PJ, A Classen, L Kueppers, Y Luo, N McDowell, J Morris, P
Thornton, J Dukes, M Goulden, J Melillo and Workshop
Participants. The Need for Next Generation Ecosystem
Experiments to Understand Climate Change Impacts on Ecosystems
and Feedbacks to the Physical Climate. Frontiers in Ecology and
Environment, in review.
Johnson DW, Todd Jr DE, Trettin CF, Mulholland PJ. 2008. Decadal
changes in potassium, calcium, and magnesium in a deciduous
forest soil. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 72: 1795-
1805.
Kardol P, Donald TE, Hanson PJ, Mulholland PJ. Long-term successional
forest dynamics: species and community responses to climatic
variability. In review.
McDowell, NG, D Baldocchi, MM Barbour, C Bickford, M Cuntz, DT Hanson,
A Knohl, HH Powers, T Rahn, J Randerson, WJ Riley, C Still, K
Tu, A Walcroft. 2008a. Measuring and modeling the stable
isotope composition of biosphere-atmosphere CO2
exchange: where are we and where are we going? EOS, Trans, AGU
89: 94-95.
McDowell, NG, W Pockman, C Allen, D Breshears, N Cobb, T Kolb, J Plaut,
J Sperry, A West, D Williams, E Yepez. 2008b. Tansley Review:
Mechanisms of plant survival and mortality during drought: why
do some plants survive while others succumb? New Phytologist,
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van Mantgem PJ, NL Stephenson, JC Byrne, LD Daniels, JF Franklin, PZ
Fule, ME Harmon, AJ Larson, JM Smith, AH Taylor, TT Veblen.
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Biography for Nathan G. McDowell
McDowell is a staff scientist within the Earth and Environmental
Sciences Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), where he
serves as the Director of LANL's Tunable Diode Laser Facility and
Director of LANL's National Environmental Research Park. McDowell
received his B.Sc. in Biology from the University of Michigan in 1994,
M.Sc. in Ecosystem Processes from the University of Idaho's College of
Natural Resources in 1998, and Ph.D. in Tree Physiology from Oregon
State University's College of Forestry in 2002. His interests are
focused on understanding the fundamental physiological regulation of
plant carbon and water balance in response to the environment. To
achieve this goal McDowell employs many techniques and develops
collaborations across many disciplines, including empirical
observations, experimentation, and modeling. His team's current
research is focused on two main areas 1) the mechanisms and
consequences of vegetation mortality in response to drought, and 2) the
fundamental regulation of the terrestrial carbon and water cycles in
response to climate and management.
Chair Baird. Thank you, Dr. McDowell.
Dr. Gibbons.
STATEMENT OF DR. J. WHITFIELD GIBBONS, PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF
ECOLOGY; HEAD OF THE SAVANNAH RIVER ECOLOGY LABORATORY
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AND OUTREACH PROGRAM, UNIVERSITY OF
GEORGIA
Dr. Gibbons. Chairman Baird, Ranking Member Inglis and
Members of the Subcommittee, good morning and thank you for
inviting me to address the Subcommittee and provide a
perspective on the Department of Energy's National
Environmental Research Parks. I am Whit Gibbons, Professor
Emeritus of Ecology from the University of Georgia and Head of
the Environmental Education and Outreach Program at the
Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, which we call SREL, on DOE'S
Savannah River site in South Carolina. I have provided more
written material to you than I will have time to read so I will
summarize the high points by using SREL and the Savannah River
site as examples of how the designations of these parks across
the Nation will be in the public interest. Please remember that
any of the other DOE sites can provide excellent examples as
well.
SREL has been operated by the University of Georgia since
1951 with a mission to provide an independent evaluation of the
environmental effects of Savannah River site operations through
a program of ecological research, education and public
outreach. SREL has been recognized internationally by
Encyclopedia Britannica as the outstanding laboratory of the
year and awarded a Guinness World Record certificate for the
longest running amphibian field research program in the world.
Both of these were made possible by DOE operating the site as a
National Environmental Research Park. SREL research
contributions include more than 3,000 publications in the peer-
reviewed scientific literature and more than 25 books on
ecology and environment. Most of the research could not have
been conducted without the protected areas that have allowed
these long-term studies.
As far as education, SREL has provided training for more
than 1,000 future scientists as undergraduate research
participants or graduate students, the latter producing more
than 400 theses and doctoral dissertations. Students have come
from 275 universities and colleges and from every state and
Puerto Rico. Most came to SREL because of research
opportunities offered by the protected land area.
In public outreach programs, SREL reaches more than 50,000
students, teachers, civic leaders and other members of the
general public each year through talks, tours, exhibits,
workshops and other presentations about the Savannah River site
and its activities and environmental stewardship. All are
focused on the protected land area and what it provides for
ecological research and wildlife conservation.
The environmental research themes possible that are
currently undertaken on the site and that will be enhanced by
legislative recognition of the parks are environmental
characterization. This will be true for any of the parks on all
of the natural habitats, which is a necessary first step in
determining environmental and health risks, research on
ecological risk and effects, which helps to ensure that good
decisions are made by reducing uncertainties associated with
complex environmental processes, and studies on remediation and
restoration of natural habitats can be conducted on the
Savannah River site where large land areas are contaminated
with relatively low levels of metals, organics and
radionuclides.
All parts of the DOE complex can also serve as reference
landscapes for the patchwork of commercial and private land
areas that exist outside of their borders as well as
representing a landscape with biological communities that can
be used as a reference for climate change without the impact of
typical economic development. Long-term ecological studies can
be conducted on the parks that would be impossible to carry out
without official protection. Protecting these areas in
perpetuity will be in the best interest of all Americans. The
establishment of the Savannah River site and other DOE sites as
National Environmental Research Parks will assure a legacy that
DOE can be proud of.
Mr. Chairman, thank you and Members of the Subcommittee for
the opportunity to provide testimony in support of the National
Research Park concept and to present the SREL model for
ecological research and for environmental education and public
outreach. The contributions to field research relating to
energy technologies that can be accomplished at these DOE sites
are unsurpassed as outdoor laboratories and their boundless
opportunities. The opportunities to achieve public trust
through transparent presentation of ecological research
findings and advancements in environmental stewardship through
education and public outreach programs are limitless, and
remember to remind your colleagues in the House and Senate that
National Environmental Research Parks are different from
national parks or wildlife refuges or national forests because
they not only allow, but welcome environmental disturbances
resulting from energy technologies where they can be studied
and reported on in the national interest. I urge you to
continue the process of formalizing the DOE lands as National
Environmental Research Parks.
This concludes my testimony, and I thank you very much. I
would be pleased to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Gibbons follows:]
Prepared Statement of J. Whitfield Gibbons
Chairman Baird, Ranking Member Inglis, and Members of the
Committee: good morning and thank you for inviting me to address the
Committee and provide the University of Georgia's Savannah River
Ecology Laboratory perspective on the Department of Energy's
designation of National Environmental Research Parks.
I am Whit Gibbons, Professor Emeritus of Ecology from the
University of Georgia and Head of the Environmental Education and
Outreach Program of the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory on DOE's
Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Because of my own background and experience I will use the Savannah
River Ecology Laboratory (SREL) as an example of how the designation of
National Environment Research Parks across the Nation will be in the
public interest. Please remember that SREL and the SRS are only
examples and that any of the DOE sites can serve as excellent examples
as well.
SREL was founded in 1951 by the late Dr. Eugene P. Odum of the
University of Georgia and throughout its history SREL has been operated
by the University of Georgia with collaboration from other academic
units regionally and nationally. The laboratory is located on the
Department of Energy's (DOE) Savannah River Site near Aiken, SC; it has
been recognized internationally by Encyclopedia Britannica as the
Outstanding Laboratory of the Year and also was recognized by a
Guinness World Record Certificate for the longest running amphibian
field research program in the world.
SREL's mission, as defined in its Cooperative Agreement with the
Department of Energy, is to provide an independent evaluation of the
ecological effects of Savannah River Site operations through a program
of ecological research, education, and public outreach.
The program involves basic and applied environmental research, with
emphasis upon expanding the understanding of ecological processes and
principles, and upon evaluating the impacts of industrial and land use
activities on the environment. Dissemination of this knowledge to the
scientific community, land managers, government officials, and the
general public is a key goal of SREL.
During its 58-year history, SREL has had a significant impact on
the Savannah River Site, the scientific community, and the general
public by actively contributing to environmental remediation,
restoration efforts, and environmental stewardship on the SRS and
elsewhere, all within the spirit of a what a system of National
Environment Research Parks proposes to be in regard to research,
education, and outreach.
1. RESEARCH--The environmental research themes that are currently
undertaken and that will be enhanced by the National Environmental
Research Park designation are:
(1) Environmental characterization,
(2) Ecological risks and effects, and
(3) Remediation and restoration of natural habitats.
SREL contributions to research include the publication of more than
3,000 publications in the peer-reviewed scientific literature and more
than 25 books on ecology and the environment.
Environmental Characterization
Characterization is a necessary first step in determining
environmental and health risks and in devising appropriate remediation
and restoration strategies. Environmental information is also needed to
make informed decisions about long-term stewardship and land
management, and it is also a critical component of NEPA reports,
Records of Decision (ROD), and other regulatory documents.
Environmental characterization is more than simply measuring
contaminant concentrations in biota or other media, or reporting the
presence of organisms at various locations. It includes developing an
understanding of the processes that control distributions of
contaminants, chemical forms, and their bioavailability.
Characterization is also necessary to construct models of how natural
and engineered systems function, both in the presence and absence of
environmental contamination.
Ecological Risks and Effects
Estimated risks and effects determine the need for remediation and
restoration efforts, while perceived risks and effects determine the
public's acceptance and support of DOE policies and actions. Estimating
ecological risks and effects on the basis of sound science helps to
ensure that good decisions are made by reducing uncertainties
associated with complex environmental processes. A 1999 report from the
National Academy of Sciences stated that ``Ecological risks are better
characterized at the Savannah River Site than at any other DOE
installation, due in part to the designation of the site as a National
Environmental Research Park and the presence of the Savannah River
Ecology Laboratory.''
Remediation and Restoration
The SRS National Environmental Research Park coupled with the
knowledge and expertise based at SREL are ideally suited to address the
remediation and restoration of large land areas contaminated with
relatively low levels of metals, organics, and radionuclides. SREL
conducts multi-disciplinary research designed to assist in the
development, evaluation and stakeholder acceptance of remediation and
restoration efforts that protect human and ecosystem health.
Fundamental to the success of various bioremediation, natural
attenuation, and in situ remediation applications is an understanding
of the underlying scientific principles on which they are based.
The SRS and other National Environmental Research Parks in the DOE
complex can also serve as reference landscapes for the patchwork
landscapes that exist outside of their borders as well as representing
a landscape with biological communities that can serve as a reference
for climate change, without the impact of ``normal'' economic
development. In addition, long-term ecological studies can be conducted
on National Environmental Research Parks that would be impossible to
carry out without the protected nature of the DOE sites.
2. EDUCATION--For more than a half century, SREL has provided training
for future scientists and engineers, having had more than 600
undergraduate research participants, including representatives from 275
universities and colleges in every state and Puerto Rico. More than 200
of these students have continued careers in science. Graduate students
have produced more than 400 Master's theses and doctoral dissertations
based on research conducted.
3. OUTREACH--In environmental outreach programs, SREL reaches as many
as 50,000 members of the general public each year through talks, tours,
exhibits, workshops, and other presentations about SRS activities and
environmental stewardship.
Reasons for SREL's success in accomplishing these goals include the
facts that the SRS has the largest tract of fenced-off, environmentally
protected land east of the Mississippi River and therefore minimally
affected by impacts from agricultural, urban, or industrial activities.
Paradoxically, because five formerly active nuclear production reactors
were guarded and protected for defense security purposes for more than
a half century, we now have what is arguably the most biologically
diverse suite of regional habitats in the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal
Plain. For these reasons, the SRS was proposed as the first National
Environmental Research Park. The other DOE complexes have comparable
uniqueness for environmental stewardship and ecological research.
Testaments to the biodiversity and abundance of wildlife on the SRS
are:
1. Upper Three Runs Creek, which travels more than 20 miles
across the site to the Savannah River, has the highest
documented diversity of aquatic invertebrates, including clams,
crawfish, freshwater shrimp, and countless fascinating insects,
than any other stream in North America.
2. More ruddy ducks winter on SRS reservoirs each year than in
the rest of South Carolina put together.
3. Much of the 10,000-acre river swamp and floodplain have
been virtually untouched by on-site human activities for a
minimum of 50 years. Recently, one of the cypress trees was
aged using tree rings and found to be more than 600 years old.
4. More species of reptiles and amphibians, over 100 species,
have been documented from the SRS than have been found on any
other public land area in the United States, including the
Everglades or Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and more
than are found in most of the 50 states. Approximately 1,000
species of plants exist on the SRS.
5. Another environmental record is that the SRS has more
intact and permanently protected Carolina bay wetlands, the
natural wetlands of this region, than the remainder of the
State of South Carolina.
These are but a few of the impressive features of this protected
land area that speak to the ecological richness and environmental
health of the region and to its perpetuation and stability. The
establishment of the SRS and other DOE sites as National Environmental
Research Parks will assure a legacy that DOE can be proud of.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you and Members of the Committee for the
opportunity to provide testimony in support of the National
Environmental Research Park concept. The contributions to field
research relating to energy technologies that can be accomplished at
these DOE sites, which are unsurpassed as outdoor laboratories, are
boundless. The opportunities to achieve public trust through
transparent presentation of ecological research findings and
advancements in ecological stewardship through environmental education
and outreach programs are limitless. We have prepared a model at SREL
both for ecological research and for environmental education and
outreach. We hope to continue our efforts at SREL under the umbrella of
the National Environmental Research Park program at the Savannah River
Site and hope that the six National Environmental Research Parks
located in other major ecological and climatic regions of the United
States will be afforded the same opportunities. This concludes my
testimony. I will be pleased to answer any questions.
Biography for J. Whitfield Gibbons
Whit Gibbons is Professor Emeritus of Ecology, University of
Georgia, and Head of the Environmental Outreach and Education program
at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL). He received degrees in
biology from the University of Alabama (B.S., 1961; M.S., 1963) and in
zoology from Michigan State University (Ph.D., 1967).
Whit is author or editor of twelve books on herpetology and
ecology, including:
Lizards and Crocodilians of the Southeast. 2009. (With Judy
Greene and Tony Mills.) UGA Press.
Frogs and Toads of the Southeast. 2008. (With Mike Dorcas.)
UGA Press.
Turtles of the Southeast. 2008. (With K. Buhlmann and T.
Tuberville.) UGA Press.
Snakes of the Southeast. 2005. (With Mike Dorcas.) UGA Press.
Winner of National Outdoor Book Award
North American Watersnakes: A Natural History. 2004. (With
Mike Dorcas.) University of Oklahoma Press.
Ecoviews: Snakes, Snails, and Environmental Tales. 1998. (With
Anne Gibbons.) University of Alabama Press. Choice Outstanding
Academic Book award.
Life History and Ecology of the Slider Turtle. 1990.
Smithsonian Institution Press.
Their Blood Runs Cold: Adventures with Reptiles and
Amphibians. 1983. U. of Alabama Press.
Whit has published more than 250 articles in scientific journals,
has had commentaries on National Public Radio (Living on Earth, Science
Friday, and others), and has had more than 1,000 popular articles on
ecology published in magazines and newspapers, including a weekly
environmental column distributed by the New York Times Regional
Newspaper Group. His encyclopedia articles have appeared in World Book,
Compton's, and for the past 25 years have included the annual summary
of Zoology for the Encyclopaedia Britannica Year Book. He wrote the
latest edition of Reptile and Amphibian Study, the merit badge booklet
for the Boy Scouts of America.
Whit Gibbons received the Henry Fitch Distinguished Herpetologist
Award at the National Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and
Herpetologists for long-term excellence in the study of amphibian and
reptile biology. He was awarded the IUCN Behler Turtle Conservation
Award in recognition of long-term turtle research and conservation
nationally and internationally. Other awards include the Southeastern
Outdoor Press Association's First Place Award for the Best Radio
Program, the South Carolina Governor's Award for Environmental
Education, the Meritorious Teaching Award presented by the Association
of Southeastern Biologists (ASB), and the ASB Senior Research Award.
Whit is a frequent speaker at meetings, both civic and scientific,
and gives talks each year to college and pre-college school groups.
Many of the talks use live animals, particularly reptiles and
amphibians, in discussions of ecological research and environmental
awareness.
Discussion
Chair Baird. Dr. Gibbons, thank you, and thanks to all the
witnesses. We have been joined by Dr. Ehlers and also by Mr.
Tonko. I thank them for being here, and I will recognize Mr.
Lujan first for five minutes as the author of H.R. 2729. Mr.
Lujan is recognized.
Mr. Lujan. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for your
indulgence there and Ranking Member Inglis as well.
I have been extremely impressed with the research that has
been taking place with NERPs around the country despite not
having the full support that they potentially could have in the
past. The research compiled has been remarkable. From your
standpoint, what type of research could be enhanced, could
grow, could be developed with additional support or funding?
And I would pose that question to the entire panel. Dr. Hanson.
Dr. Hanson. Recent community studies have highlighted all
terrestrial ecosystems as being important for fuel, fiber,
recreational areas, for everyone's backyard, so the key six or
seven ecosystems represented by the National Environmental
Research Parks represent a real opportunity to understand how
vulnerable those systems might be to climate change as an issue
or other environmental issues.
Mr. Lujan. Dr. McDowell.
Dr. McDowell. Let me make sure I understand the question.
You are curious what the future research applications could be
if there was support for them?
Mr. Lujan. Sure.
Dr. McDowell. Yeah, I think what Dr. Hanson said was
absolutely true, and in addition what we could really
capitalize on, which is already a huge interest to American
scientists from any agency or academic institution, is to have
a network of sites such as those done by AmeriFlux, which you
guys may have heard of earlier this year, that are monitoring
climate impacts continuously over long time periods but that
has done so in a coordinated way, and that is one of the great
values of this network is, it can be coordinated. We can
actually work together to make sure that we are documenting
those changes. Likewise, the type of experiments that Dr.
Hanson emphasized in his presentation could be done in a
coordinated fashion throughout the park to allow us to actually
provide the necessary understanding for future models of
climate impacts as well as climate change models such as those
that Dr. Bader referenced. And I am sure, I just want to also
say that there are a lot of other things other scientists with
other interests might also, you know, add to that list.
Mr. Lujan. Dr. Gibbons.
Dr. Gibbons. Yes. In the area of biodiversity, I think
habitat fragmentation is one of the major concerns of impacts
on wildlife across the country, across the world, and the
advantage of the National Environmental Research Parks is,
these are contained units, very little disruption within them.
I mean, the Savannah River site, 300 square miles, 80 percent
of it is forestlands and wetlands and so we can determine there
what is--what should the natural world be like compared to what
it is in the surrounding areas and the rest of the country. It
is an excellent opportunity to do that kind of research.
Mr. Lujan. And along those lines, Dr. Gibbons and Dr.
McDowell, you mentioned in your opening remarks the importance
of public outreach and how there can be coordination within the
community. I would, you know, point out the youthfulness of Dr.
McDowell but the rather extensive knowledge that he also brings
in the research that has been done. In both working with public
schools or surrounding universities in the community where our
laboratories or the parks reside, what can be done to be able
to continue to work with them and with the surrounding
community as well as providing an opportunity to be able to
continue to recruit young scientists, to encourage them to get
into this field as well?
Dr. Gibbons. Our program involves bringing what we call
ecologists for a day and bring students out every week twice a
week to the site from different regional schools, spend all day
measuring the environment the way ecologists do and in fact,
the program fills up immediately the first day after Labor Day
because all the schools want to come to this. That is one
thing, and I think what it does, it gives the public in an area
more confidence that they know what is going on out on this
site, that children are out there, that programs are developed
so they can visit, they can see the natural areas. Of course,
they don't get around some of the areas, but the natural
areas--it is an opportunity to teach children. Then, the next
step up of course, it is for college students who have
undergraduate programs and the other sites do as well where
research opportunities for undergraduates to come in for
internships and then of course the programs with graduate
students that are available on most of the sites too.
Mr. Lujan. Thank you very much, Dr. Gibbons.
And Mr. Chairman, if I may ask Dr. McDowell, what I would
ask is if on the next round of questions I can come back and
get Dr. McDowell to respond to that question.
Chair Baird. Absolutely.
Mr. Lujan. Thank you, sir.
Chair Baird. We have been joined by Mr. Davis. Thank you,
Mr. Davis, for your presence today. With that, I recognize Mr.
Inglis for five minutes.
Land Remediation
Mr. Inglis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Gibbons, I am excited about the work that is going on
at Savannah River and really it is quite a site. Three hundred
square miles is a lot of area to do work in, and it is also a
place where I guess we are taking the lemons that we have been
given and turning them into lemonade. There is some trouble
there in 300 square miles, and I wonder if you could elaborate
on that. There is research on how to remediate, right, that is
important work that is going on there that may have great
contributions to really the whole world?
Dr. Gibbons. I think remediation and restoration of areas
like that are particularly important. Obviously the community
wants to be assured that it is a safe place to live around, and
there is admittedly low-level radionuclides, there are metal
contaminations, other contaminants on the Savannah River site.
I think the important part is, most of them are localized and
people on the site know where they are. The next step is, how
do you contain them in terms of groundwater? And certainly
there are people--some of the scientists at the site are
involved in addressing that question. I think an important
feature of a National Environmental Research Park like Savannah
River is when you do have contaminated areas, you have next
door to them on the same site uncontaminated areas that you can
use as reference sites or controls to compare what should the
habitat be like. This is what it is perhaps in a sense of
contamination. This is what it should be like. And so that is
one of the real advantages that research can be done to make
those comparisons. I think there is a suite of scientists of
different areas, Savannah River Ecology Lab, Savannah River
National Laboratory, Forest Service, there are people in
various categories that are examining different aspects of the
habitats, of the problems, and I think one of the things we
think is important is the public education. We want to let the
public know what are we finding out, what is really happening
out there, and that seems to be a very--that is the educational
component I think a lot of people are very interested in.
Mr. Inglis. For the benefit of my colleagues, I think we
should mention that, I think it is, what, 35 million gallons of
high-level liquid radioactive waste that we have had at the
Savannah River site that we have got to deal with. We are
dealing with it, vitrifying it in the plant there, right?
Dr. Gibbons. That is absolutely right.
Mr. Inglis. So 35 million gallons is going down every year
but it is a serious matter.
Dr. Gibbons. It is a major problem that is being dealt
with, I think by people there as well as it can be.
Mr. Inglis. Right, and it is also--you mentioned in your
testimony that the Savannah River Ecology Lab may help us with
the development of energy technologies. I wonder if you could
elaborate on that?
Dr. Gibbons. I think we are all interested in energy
technologies, or most of us, and developing energy
technologies, but I think many people these days also want to
know that the environment is safe while we are doing it. I
think what Savannah River Ecology Laboratory scientists do is,
we look at the environment, look at impacts on the environment
by different activities and can come up with recommendations
for how can it be done better or is it being done properly. Can
we do a better job environmentally as well as technologically?
Mr. Inglis. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Funding Sources and Park Activity
Chair Baird. I will recognize myself for five minutes.
Talk to us a little bit about how it is determined what
research gets done and where the funding is. You have each got
jurisdiction over a different park or are involved with this.
Who decides what studies are done and where does the funding
come from? Is it at NSF or is it out of the DOE budget, a
combination? How does it work out? Dr. Hanson?
Dr. Hanson. Most of our research is funded through the
federal good graces, of course. The Department of Energy
provides the vast majority of research funds on the National
Environmental Research Parks but NSF, USDA and EPA in times
past, or for specific projects, have also provided funds. The
National Science Foundation through their National Ecology
Observation Network is targeting a wildland site on the Oak
Ridge Reservation for long-term monitoring that would benefit
from the legislation that is on the table. Specific projects
have been funded and developed through initiatives sponsored by
the agencies and the Program for Ecosystem Research, the
Terrestrial Carbon Processes program, both within the Office of
Science, and they have been very good at identifying what kind
of projects scientists might deploy in the protected and
available lands of the research parks.
Chair Baird. Thank you.
Dr. McDowell.
Dr. McDowell. I would just like to add to Dr. Hanson's
comment, which I fully agree with and it is very similar for
Los Alamos what he said. I would just like to add that in terms
of who decides what is actually done, that is both a strength
and a weakness of the current system because the creativity of
the principal investigator such as Paul or myself is what
drives what decides gets done to a large degree. That is great,
because we are creative, but that is bad because there is no
formalized integration between us that we would like to have,
so it is like having a lot of smart people not necessarily
working together in a scenario.
Chair Baird. That actually raises a related line that I
wanted to ask. Dr. Bader, you have talked about the need to
improve climate models, and one of my questions would be, do
you see a role for these parks, and how does your modeling work
relate to the kind of research that might be done at these
parks?
Dr. Bader. Well, the modeling is going through a
transformation right now. We documented that there is climate
change and now we have to understand what the impacts of that
climate change are, so the questions for the models became a
lot harder, and one of the reasons I moved from Livermore to
Oak Ridge is because we are trying to do the other scenario. We
are trying to understand what is going on at these scales and
then bring them up to the models, so they perform two roles.
They are laboratories for us to understand at the process level
what needs to be included into the models, and at the other end
they, as both my colleagues to the left and right have pointed
out, they are validators of impacts of what the models produce
and their results to see if they can get it right, so they
serve both those purposes.
Chair Baird. Thank you. You know, we marked up last week in
this committee a National Climate Service bill and it strikes
me that the kind of research you are doing and the kind of
modeling you are doing is synergistic and should interact very
closely with the National Climate Service in a very
constructive feedback loop as they seek questions of the
specificity that you are referring to, Dr. Bader, and as they
have laboratories such as we have in these parks. This is a
stupid question because I think I pre-know the answer but what
is the funding situation for the parks as part of the DOE
budget? Is it a--if I say is it adequate, let me guess the
answer. But talk a little bit about funding and where it
resides within DOE.
Dr. McDowell. To my knowledge, there is none.
Dr. Gibbons. I would say there is no funding now.
Chair Baird. So how do you run the parks?
Dr. Gibbons. Well, the parks run themselves as long as they
stay there. I think the parks are used as places to study and
to develop energy technologies.
Chair Baird. One of the strange virtues of this is--they
were created sort of incidentally as buffer zones for the labs
and then protected by security for that purpose, and in so
doing we inadvertently but quite happily have created a natural
laboratory which is at virtually no cost. One could imagine if
someone came and said we want the Congress to authorize a 300-
square-mile research park. People would be up in arms. But here
we have done that and we are able to benefit from the results.
It is a happy side effect and I am fortunate that people like
Mr. Lujan and you gentlemen have recognized its merit.
I will recognize Ms. Giffords for five minutes.
Ms. Giffords. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Davis, an
appropriator, has a meeting in 10 minutes so I am going to
yield my time to him.
Chair Baird. Always wise to yield to appropriators.
Environmental Degradation and Water Studies
Mr. Davis. I will be very brief and not use the allotted
time and will yield back my time, and Ms. Giffords, thanks very
much, and Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, thank you all for
having this hearing today. I welcome Dr. Hanson. I just came
from a meeting with several folks from Oak Ridge at the NEI
conference here in D.C. I live in an area in the northern part
of the plateau which you are very familiar with, and as I
engage in dialogue with folks at the Big South Fork National
River and Recreation area, about a 125,000-acre park,
oftentimes I am reminded that the ecological system of the
entire eastern United States has been totally disrupted as a
result of the harvesting of timber, farming operations and
others. Obviously mankind has to survive, but when I look at
some of the photographs in places like Sterns, Kentucky,
Huntsville, Tennessee, Jamestown over the years and see the
huge piling of timber as they were basically cut down and then
used for the expansion of American industry, the expansion of
American growth, the home building, the factories and others--
but I know the research you are doing dealt a lot with
radiation and the area around the Oak Ridge Lab, but also you
are doing some research on the impact on our sustainable
forests in the area. I am just making a comment rather than a
question. I am pleased to see these seven different locations
where we are seriously looking at the impact of mankind on our
environment. I applaud your work and hope that we can continue
to fund at the level that is necessary to see that at least we
know what we do as mankind on this Earth can have an impact on
the future for our children. Thanks for being here today and
thanks for letting me just make a few brief comments. I yield
back.
Chair Baird. Thank you, Mr. Davis, for your interest in
this.
Ms. Giffords.
Ms. Giffords. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I applaud you for
bringing these panelists together, a very interesting
presentation. I come from southern Arizona. I notice in the map
that unfortunately I am not in one of the NERPs. I am not sure
how that happened because I have got the best District in the
whole country with great environmental resources. But that
being said, I would like to comment on being in the Colorado
Rocky area last year where, driving for over an hour, I mean
the horror of looking across the thousands and thousands of
miles of acres of these beautiful pine trees that are now
turning red and turning ashen gray and are dying, and I think
about the fact that in Arizona we are suffering from a very
prolonged drought. I think it is estimated that we have lost
about a fifth of our forests due to infestation of bark beetles
and these mega fires that are happening and what is happening
with climate change in general. So I am curious if someone can
talk specifically about the effects of climate and water. I
know that there is the Los Alamos and also the southern Nevada
NERP that exist, but I am wondering whether or not any of these
facilities are specifically focused on the understanding of the
hydrological cycle in the areas. And also, if someone could
also tie in whether or not there is coordination. For example,
at the University of Arizona, we have many eminent climate
scientists specifically at the College of Science and whether
or not there is that coordination and collaboration taking
place.
Dr. McDowell. Yeah, the Los Alamos Environmental Research
Park originally was a hydrology study and it became from
original funding to study radionuclide passage and they were
worried about groundwater contamination, so that was the origin
and that is why we--and then they happened to move into
studying trees and that is why they just happened to document
the water stress and the water aspects of tree mortality. I
agree with you about Colorado. Skiing there is not quite what
it used to be with all the dead trees, but--and that is
happening all over the place right now. As for Arizona, you
have--you indeed have some of the world's leading experts at
the University of Arizona on this subject, and in fact, I
talked about climate change-type drought. Well, that label came
from Professor Bashirs at the University of Arizona. He
actually used to sit in my office at Los Alamos before he came
to Arizona. So there is a good collaboration. We don't have
current funding to do that. You know, again, it is PI-driven-
type research but there is a lot of dialogue. I mean, Dave and
I e-mailed together last night about that. Paul?
Dr. Hanson. I just want to comment that the Nevada test
site has hosted in the past precipitation studies in the arid
system that is there along with elevated CO2 studies
complementary and specifically coordinated but also funded by
the Department of Energy elevated CO2 and
precipitation studies on the Oak Ridge Reservation and similar
observational work goes on at the Argonne National Lab. The
point being that the Office of Science has funded a lot of
these studies taking advantage of the NERP lands.
Chair Baird. I am going to let the gentlelady continue for
two more minutes if she likes.
Ms. Giffords. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Study of Renewable Energy Sources
I noticed from the testimony that a major focus of the
NERPs seem to be to look at the traditional sources of energy,
specifically fossil fuels, on the environment. We spent a lot
of time in this committee talking about renewables. I am
dedicated to particularly solar energy because of where I come
from in Arizona and the potential that solar has for the desert
Southwest. I know that there is a minimal environmental impact
even on renewables that are supposed to be, you know,
``clean.'' So I am curious whether or not there is any research
happening at the National Environmental Parks on understanding
and mitigating the environmental impacts of renewables as well,
fossil fuels.
Dr. McDowell. To my knowledge, that is not being done. I
don't know if the other--my colleagues----
Dr. Hanson. No active on-the-ground research in the Oak
Ridge Reservation, but a number of analyses have been looked at
to determine what could be done with the National Environmental
Research Park to provide some component of the energy needs of
the Oak Ridge National Lab and surrounding DOE facilities. But
I could look up more information on that if you would like.
Ms. Giffords. No, I appreciate that.
Mr. Chairman, as we all know, as states and the country
move towards a national renewable energy standard, we are going
to be seeing a rapid increase, a ramping up of renewables and
we don't quite understand them in this committee. In the Full
Committee, I think during the markup, I wanted to include the
studying of photovoltaics when it comes to recycling on a bill
that we heard earlier. Unfortunately, it didn't get included
but we need to know more about how these renewables are
affecting our environment as well, so thank you.
Chair Baird. We do indeed, and Ms. Giffords, one of the
interesting things about the die-off of trees in the Rocky
Mountains is paradoxically, the legislation to prevent climate
change does not currently allow most of those trees to be used
as a renewable resource for energy production. Well, it allows
it but there is no tax benefit. The mature, dead and diseased
trees are excluded from the renewable energy and renewable
fuels standards in the current bill moving before this
Congress. I think it is a grave mistake and many of us are
working to correct that. We have not been successful, however,
instead we are going to let these dead trees turn into methane
or carbon through forest fires rather than using them to heat
homes and then replace them through reforestation, which to me
is bad energy and environmental policy, but I thank the
gentlelady.
Mr. Tonko is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Climate Modeling
Just rather quickly, some of you focused on the efforts to
create the next generation of climate models, and just how is
that being developed? Is it relying on that interagency climate
change science program or are there ways that we can cultivate
these new generations of models so as to take into account the
dynamics that we need to?
Dr. Bader. The interagency climate change science program,
you know, each--I worked at the Office of Science during the
transition from the first Bush Administration to the Clinton
Administration and from Clinton to the second Bush
Administration, and that whole--as you know, that whole
interagency activity kind of reshuffles at each of those and
right now there is nothing to replace it that I am aware of, a
reconfiguration of the interagency activity. Climate modeling
is one of the true interagency parts of the U.S. climate change
research program or the climate change science program,
whatever incarnation you have, and does require cooperation.
There has been several studies both National Research Council
and then an OSTP-sponsored study that I was talking about, and
I alluded to it in my testimony, the organization of the
agencies to actually benefit--to produce climate models that
really make use of all the capabilities, because it is a big
problem and there is more than enough work for everybody to do.
None of those recommendations seem to ever get past agency
boundaries, you know, that kind of problem, even though at the
level the technical workers were all cooperating very closely.
So this is one of those things that you can't fault anybody for
but it is the result of a lot of inertia in the system where
you really need something different and there is lots of
capabilities, there are lots of computer power but organizing
that and structuring it and managing it is something that I
feel and always will feel probably could be improved.
Mr. Tonko. When we talk about a next generation of climate
models, is there an item or two that is most neglected or most
ignored in that----
Dr. Bader. Two specific things that would be in the next
generation. One is increasing resolution. Our climate models
don't operate at the same resolution our weather prediction
models operate now. We would like to get our climate models to
be at high resolution, spatial resolution, resolve things like
hurricanes and big thunderstorms. They don't do that now. That
is one aspect. Or boundary currents in the oceans. The second
thing is, we want to include the interactive carbon cycle which
our colleagues are working on here so that we can drive the
models not just with concentration scenarios but actual
emission scenarios, so energy mitigation options being
considered. So those are the two big areas, the incorporation
of biogeochemical cycles and the increase in spatial resolution
in both the atmosphere and the ocean and on land as well.
Mr. Tonko. And in terms of the value added to all that is
done at your centers, how is any of the info or the assistance
that is able to be provided to perhaps other situations across
the country that, you know, gets extrapolated into that
network? How does that happen? Is there a proactive quality to
it or--I mean, there might be great things that you are doing
that might be useful to other applications.
Dr. Bader. Right. I mean, I think a good example of that is
the organization I just left, PCMDI. We made the output
available from the world's major climate modeling centers to
thousands of people. High school kids actually would call me up
because they couldn't figure out how to work with that amount
of data but it is available to anybody who wants to access and
use it, and at Oak Ridge one of the things that attracted me
there, we are developing an information delivery system so when
we run the models, that information can be first to the
researchers but then to people who do impact analysis and
things like that to make that information. The idea is for an
end-to-end system, not just for the people doing the modeling
but to deliver predictions and projections out to the broad
range of users.
Mr. Tonko. And is there some sort of improvement that we
can do from the Congressional perspective in order to make that
more fluid, more effective?
Dr. Bader. I think that there are some pieces that require
an infrastructure to do a lot of this work that don't lend
themselves well to the traditional science research activities
and you have to realize that there is--they talked about in
many cases observational systems they call the Valley of Death
between research to operations. A research paradigm doesn't
work for operations but getting from one to the other requires
a rethinking of the organizational paradigms on how you do
this.
Mr. Tonko. Doesn't that seem to be the common overriding
theme that we get caught in the prototype or whatever, the
beginning stages, and it doesn't get followed through?
Dr. Bader. Right.
Mr. Tonko. And much of the R&D.
Dr. Bader. I think that is a problem. The Office of Science
is a research-supporting agency, so taking that into the next
step, there is nobody to pick it up in the ways it needs.
Mr. Tonko. So is it a structure or is it more a function of
resources?
Dr. Bader. Both, but resources are needed but resources
alone won't solve the problem.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you.
Chair Baird. The gentleman's time is expired, but I would
just address that to some degree I think our climate service
legislation, which we passed, has the potential to address
this. As you may know, the mandate is for OSTP to convene the
various agencies doing this relevant work and will have
overriding entity to coordinate and perhaps address some of
these questions, so I would invite Members of the Committee if
they have a chance to offer suggestions regarding how that
climate service should be structured, we would certainly
welcome that input and I think Mr. Tonko has highlighted
precisely one of the issues that we were trying to get at with
that, and I think it has been affirmed by the panelists today,
so excellent line of questioning, Mr. Tonko. Thank you.
Mr. Lujan has asked for a second round. I am going to
recognize myself for two quick questions, if I may. I want to
clarify, whenever someone here in the Congress hears
``establish a new park,'' a quite understandable reaction is,
we don't have enough money to pay for our existing parks. I
think one of the points we want to make is, these are existing
parks. We are just formalizing their existence. Is that a fair
portrayal, Mr. Lujan and to the witnesses? We are not asking
for a bunch of new folks in Smoky Bear hats to go out. We are
basically formalizing something that already exists.
Mr. Lujan. Mr. Chairman, that is absolutely correct and I
think we heard from our witnesses today not only the importance
of the parks but the established research, the establishment of
the parks and how we can fully utilize them going forward to
truly understand what can be done in remediation and research
and ecology and environmental studies that will be critical
into the future to help us better understand what is occurring
today.
Evidence of Climate Change
Chair Baird. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify that so if
it comes up and our colleagues ask, we have got that in the
record.
Secondly, I just want to, for the benefit of the record
also, is it--and I will ask each panelist just a very simple
yes or no. It is your professional judgment that there is
evidence, A, of climate change, and that B, that anthropogenic
CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions are
contributing to that?
Dr. Hanson. Yes.
Dr. Bader. Absolutely.
Dr. McDowell. Yes.
Dr. Gibbons. Yes.
Chair Baird. I thank that. I appreciate that. We
periodically have Members of our committee who express some
skepticism of that but, your combined professional--how many
years have you been at this, Dr. Hanson?
Dr. Hanson. Twenty-three.
Chair Baird. Dr. Bader.
Dr. Bader. Twenty-four.
Chair Baird. Dr. McDowell.
Dr. McDowell. Can I include my graduate school years to
bump it up?
Chair Baird. Absolutely.
Dr. McDowell. About 10.
Dr. Gibbons. Forty-two.
Chair Baird. So we have got well over 100 years of
experience. And one last part of this, have you examined the
so-called skeptical arguments? Have you taken some time to look
at these or are you only looking at the confirmatory evidence?
Have you looked at some of the arguments of the skeptics? Dr.
Hanson.
Dr. Hanson. I think the perspective is one of how science
works. Projections of climate change today are what they are.
Science will proceed. New findings will develop and they may
shift the projections of what climate change might be in the
future, but that is the nature of climate change. A shift in
direction of a projection is not a reason to disbelieve what we
believe is the current condition. It is simply a recognition of
new understanding.
Chair Baird. Thank you.
Dr. Bader.
Dr. Bader. Yeah, I was the lead author for the CCSP Climate
Modeling Report 3.1 and we actually had to take on--one of our
committee oversight members was Dick Lindzen from
Massachusetts\1\ and we had to go toe to toe with him for about
three months in the process. So, yeah, I do know their
arguments. Most of them try to develop a greater uncertainty
than actually exists and they exploit those uncertainties to a
large degree to make their argument and try to present it as a
balanced argument where really, even if you exploit those
uncertainties, the evidence on the other side is overwhelming.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Chair Baird. So when one hears various points, well, what
about this, solar flares, what about heating of Mars, what
about blah, blah, blah, in most cases those questions have
actually been answered satisfactorily?
Dr. Bader. Oh, yes. I mean, the simplest way to look at
this is, you can't violate the first law of thermodynamics, and
increasing greenhouse gases cause more energy to be trapped
into the climate system, and when you trap more energy, you
will increase its temperature. It is that simple, and a
sophomore class in thermodynamics in college teaches everybody
that.
Chair Baird. Dr. McDowell or Dr. Gibbons care to comment?
Dr. McDowell. I would say yes, I have considered the
alternative viewpoints certainly, but the bulk of the evidence
that exists, perhaps you could--you know, anyone can look at
the IPCC report of 2007--concludes quite strongly that there is
a real anthropogenic effect on the climate which these guys
have nicely summarized.
Chair Baird. Dr. Gibbons.
Dr. Gibbons. I would agree with what Dr. McDowell says, and
yes, I agree that all the evidence, all the objective evidence
I have seen supports the anthropogenic effects.
Chair Baird. Thank you, gentlemen.
I recognize Mr. Inglis for five minutes.
Mr. Inglis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. McDowell, in your testimony, following up on the
Chairman's line of questioning, you pointed out that you are
using your laser facility to determine if specific CO2
emissions come from biological or from fossil fuel sources. I
wonder if you can describe how you differentiate the two. It
may go to helping some of those folks that are skeptical in the
matter.
Dr. McDowell. Yes, certainly I can do that. In our
particular case, we have a laser facility which measures the
isotopic composition of atmospheric CO2. The
isotopic composition of atmospheric CO2 is
controlled by a number of factors. The two biggest factors we
can say right now globally as well as locally at my site are
the biology of the terrestrial ecosystems, which has a major
effect on that isotopic composition, and fossil fuels. So
fossil fuels are simply dead plants from a long, long time ago
and so they have an isotopic composition characteristic of
plants. Now, natural gas in particular has a very distinct
isotopic composition. It is very different than the ecosystems
that exist today over most of the Earth. A natural gas-burning
plant slightly--it is about six kilometers away from my
facility, just slightly uphill, so at night as CO2
drains down the landscape, we can actually see that signal. So
in the winter when there is very high fossil fuel emissions, we
almost only see the signature of fossil fuels. In the summer
when the gas plant is virtually turned off, it is a very low
level, we only see signatures that are characteristic of the
ecosystems. This same sort of technology is actually applied at
the global scale, particularly by NOAA, who makes these
measurements around the world. Does that help?
Mr. Inglis. That is very interesting, yes. You really can
tell the difference. And the signature is--and I am not a
scientist so you are going to have dumb this down to get it
where I can understand it. What does the signature look like
that is different? It reflects light differently or something
when it is hit with the laser?
Dr. McDowell. Yeah, that would be correct. It is an
absorption process and so the laser has different peaks it can
shift to, and there is absorption of the different isotopologs,
we would call them, C1202 or C1302, these different isotopes,
isotopologs, and it does pick them up, yeah.
Mr. Inglis. Interesting.
Dr. McDowell. Yeah. This technology is fairly unique at Los
Alamos because it is very rapid. We have a very fast system
that is very accurate. However, slower but just as accurate
systems are run by NOAA and other organizations to allow us to
do this around the world.
Mr. Inglis. I would be happy to yield to the Chairman.
Chair Baird. So what you are saying to us is that you have
technology that allows us to tell where the carbon in the
atmosphere came from, whether it was anthropogenic, through
burning of fossil fuels or whether it was a natural mechanism
of respiration from ground, for example, release from
agriculture or some other source?
Dr. McDowell. That is correct. I would only add that I am
not the only one, but yeah.
Chair Baird. But this technology exists so that----
Dr. McDowell. Yes.
Chair Baird.--when people say ``yes, I understand that the
climate may be changing, I just don't think anthropogenic
factors are the cause of that,'' you have a mechanism to say
what percentage of the greenhouse gases, at least CO2
in this case, are from anthropogenic and what may be from
natural processes?
Dr. McDowell. Our society does have that capability.
Mr. Inglis. Dr. Bader, do you want to add something to
that?
Dr. Bader. Yeah, at Lawrence Livermore there is--the Center
for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry does similar type
measurements on samples taken from the air and from water that
can then do the isotopic analysis on the source of carbon, so
besides the lidar-type measurements, there is other instruments
that can differentiate natural versus fossil fuel carbon.
Mr. Inglis. Dr. Bader, it is interesting, when you
mentioned the second law of thermodynamics being applicable
here, is that just--maybe--I am trying to think, when people
are skeptical about that and they say that maybe it is not
caused--it is a natural effect and therefore it is just--it
can't be controlled in any way by human intervention, in other
words, you can't change it, it is just what it is is what it
is. How would you respond to that?
Dr. Bader. Well, I mean, so the theory of greenhouse gas
warming is well over 100 years old. It was first presented at
the London society meeting. You know, nobody debates the fact
that if you put more carbon dioxide into the air, that you will
trap more infrared energy. So that is where the first law of
thermodynamics comes in. So while you are increasing your
concentrations of carbon dioxide, you are putting in something
that will decrease the amount of infrared radiation emitted and
you are still getting the same amount of solar coming in. So
for a while, you are going to have more energy coming into the
Earth than going out, and that is where the first law of
thermodynamics applies. When you add more energy than you emit,
then you are going to heat up and eventually the planet will
heat up to the point, if the concentrations stay constant, that
it will start emitting infrared energy at the level it needs to
be balanced and it will stop warming. That takes several
hundred years if you stopped changing concentrations today. The
science behind this is irrefutable. The theory behind it has
never been assaulted. What they try to do is obfuscate the
basic theory with a bunch of other things that don't matter.
Mr. Inglis. And I guess the models can be poked at, right?
I mean, you can--it is an enormously complex system, the
Earth's climate system, so you can poke at various points on
those models, right?
Dr. Bader. You can, but I mean, so what we try to do,
though, the first thing we try to do is make sure the global
model does the right things globally, and up until a few years
ago these models used to what we call ``drift.'' You will put a
model together, a very complex, highly, what we call nonlinear
so there are lots of feedbacks and it wouldn't look like the
Earth's climate, but they have gotten good enough. That is what
I referred to. We are able to do very good simulations of the
20th century climate. We are only able to do those if we add
anthropogenic greenhouse gases to the time history of
concentrations in the atmosphere. If we don't do that, the
planet does not warm as observed and so the models are complex,
but in some ways the system itself works as you would expect it
to.
Mr. Inglis. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Baird. Thank you, Mr. Inglis.
Mr. Lujan.
More on Remediation
Mr. Lujan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again, Ranking
Member Inglis. Again, what a great line of questioning. You
know, I almost wanted to yield more time, Mr. Chairman, but I
know you can allow yourself as much time as we may need.
I want to get back to the line of questioning around
remediation and the work and the research that is specifically
taking place within each of our parks which can help us better
understand how we can do better on the true need for support
for restoration or remediation around our national laboratories
and anywhere else in the country or, for that matter, the world
that may need some help. Dr. Gibbons, if we could start with
you and then maybe Dr. McDowell.
Dr. Gibbons. Okay, the question being, what do we need to
do in terms of remediation or why do we need remediation?
Mr. Lujan. How do the designations of the national parks
allow us to better understand this going forward to be able to
make progress in this area? And then the follow-up question I
would have is, you know, is the remediation program within DOE
adequately supported today? That would be my follow-up but we
can address those together.
Dr. Gibbons. Yeah. Well, the remediation program in DOE is
supported in a variety of different ways to different
organizations who do different parts. I think the important
part from the National Environmental Research Park designation
is that you keep these lands intact so that there is no loss of
these lands, for instance, the periphery, until the remediation
is complete or at least underway or identified what needs to be
done where, and do we have the reference area control sites in
comparative areas to make sure the remediation has been
accomplished, and the remediation covers a host of different
aspects, as you would know. One is, do you get rid of
radionuclides that are in a habitat or do you manage to contain
them and live with them there? There are just many different
components and I think the important thing is to keep the land
intact at all these areas that have contaminants to be sure
that--that is one reason for, I think, keeping the integrity of
the sites. As far as the funding, I can't--it varies so much. I
am sure you would have to talk to different people about--most
people will tell you they never have enough funding.
Mr. Lujan. And Dr. Gibbons, can you also touch upon how
this can assist us with remediation or restoration of areas
where we may have abandoned uranium mines throughout the
country? I know that we have some in my District around the
Navajo Nation.
Dr. Gibbons. Well, I am not sure I can--well, I guess you
can--by doing remediation at one site, you can certainly learn
what to do at other sites. It can be applicable to other areas.
I am not--my uranium background is pretty sparse, so I would
probably have to defer to someone else about that,
specifically.
Mr. Lujan. Thank you, Dr. Gibbons.
Dr. McDowell. Congressman Lujan, I can--I am in a similar
situation as my colleague but I can say that--I will say that
for the record the part about the funding in particular and get
back to you. Regarding the quality of--I mean, I do--I can say
this, that I have colleagues and friends at Los Alamos who
study environmental remediation and who have done very, very
high-impact work that has done a lot for Los Alamos and for
their individual careers and for their groups at the lab, both
in terms of bringing in additional funding for pure science as
well as applied science, and I know that they have--universally
when I speak with them, they say that they couldn't do it
without the preservation of the landscape and the ability to
make the measurements that they need to make on the landscape,
so they are very dependent on the National Environmental
Research Park. Regarding the funding, I would like to respond
to you for the record later.
Mr. Lujan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back my time.
Chair Baird. I thank you, Mr. Lujan. Again, I want to thank
Mr. Lujan for recognizing the importance of this marvelous
resource that we have. I thank the witnesses for their
insightful testimony and for their ongoing scientific research.
With that, I would also indicate that the record will remain
open for two weeks for additional statements for the Members
and for answers to any follow-up questions the Subcommittee may
ask of the witnesses. I thank the witnesses. It has been a most
insightful round of testimony and I hope we have the
opportunity to share the transcript with some of our colleagues
who I think will find some of the testimony very enlightening.
Again, I thank the witnesses for their experience, and with
that, the hearing stands adjourned. Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 11:20 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix 1:
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Nathan G. McDowell, Staff Scientist and Director of the
Los Alamos Environmental Research Park, Los Alamos National
Laboratory
Question submitted by Representative Ben R. Lujan
Q1. In your opinion, is DOE's environmental remediation program
adequately supported, and are there any ways you believe this program
could be improved?
A1. I appreciate the importance of environmental remediation at LANL
and throughout the DOE complex. LANL's environmental remediation work
is funded by DOE Environmental Management. There have rarely been
sufficient funds to meet the goals of environmental remediation because
environmental remediation is extremely challenging and the cleanup
goals are hard to achieve. Environmental remediation at LANL has
received $1.4 Billion since 1991, however, which contrasts with
ecological impacts of climate change, which has received $0.
Appendix 2:
----------
Additional Material for the Record