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Accurate assessments, innovative solutions, and a skilled workforce with the technical know-how to implement those solutions, as governments around the world seek to reduce emissions of heat trapped in the atmosphere. is required. Colorado State University has provided the necessary tools through more than 50 years of intensive research on changes in soil carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.
The U.S. government relies on CSU’s expertise to estimate greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s agricultural land in official reports and policy decisions. This long-standing partnership is expanding with a $19.5 billion climate-smart agriculture program launched through the federal Inflation Reduction Act. 2022. The U.S. Department of Agriculture provided funding to CSU to track emissions to assess whether practices such as sequestering carbon on land are effective in reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
“We have a unique role in supporting the federal government in this way,” said John C., chief technical compiler of the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory and director of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability at the Warner College of Natural Resources. said Stephen Ogle, professor of sexuality. “Many institutions are doing research, but they don’t necessarily have the policy role that we have here, because there is a long tradition of modeling soil organic matter dynamics.”
Agricultural land, depending on how it is managed, can emit greenhouse gases or accumulate them in the soil. Regenerative practices are considered a promising solution to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane entering the atmosphere that contribute to global warming.
CSU leads the national inventory of greenhouse gases across all farmland and grasslands in the country. The U.S. government reports this information to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as part of agreements with other countries to reduce emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change.
As a senior research fellow in CSU’s Institute of Natural Resources Ecology, Ogle’s research extends beyond the borders of the United States. He has worked with more than 20 countries, including Costa Rica, Vietnam, and South Africa, to help improve their greenhouse gas inventories as part of the U.S. commitment to the United Nations’ climate change goals.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sets guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories, and CSU was also involved in its design. In 2006, Ogle and Keith Paustian, a senior research fellow at NREL and University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Soil and Crop Science in the College of Agriculture, were among the lead authors of a report that overhauled the IPCC guidelines. As a result, Ogle and Paustian were awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, along with hundreds of other IPCC authors and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, for their efforts to measure and combat climate change. did.
“We are here to provide technical expertise to help the federal government and society find ways to limit further climate change,” Ogle said.
Modeling soil dynamics
CSU’s soil carbon research has deep global roots. NREL was founded in the late 1960s he to study grassland soil processes in response to the International Biology Program. Based on that research, the Century computer model was developed in the late 1980s to simulate long-term changes in soil organic matter dynamics. In the 1990s, Century was followed by the DayCent model, which added a daily timescale for estimating trace gas emissions.
William Parton, a senior scientist at NREL and professor emeritus in the Forest and Rangeland Management Service, led the development of these biogeochemical models that predict the exchange of carbon, nitrogen, and methane between the atmosphere, vegetation, and soil. did. The model, calibrated using field measurements, has been applied to farmland and grasslands around the world.
“We modeled almost every square meter of agricultural land in the world,” says Parton.
With the DayCent model as a core component, USDA and CSU released COMET-Farm in the early 2010s. COMET-Farm is a web-based tool that farmers and ranchers can use to estimate soil carbon change and greenhouse gas emissions on their land based on a variety of data. Management practices. COMET-Farm and its associated web-based tool, COMET-Planner, are currently being used by farmers, ranchers, and other participants in USDA’s Climate Smart Commodities Partnership Program to improve carbon sequestration through climate action implementation. and help track greenhouse gas reductions. – Wise management practices.
NREL continues to refine its models and has begun using DayCent to calculate carbon credits in the rapidly growing carbon market.
“Climate Solutions University”
Richard Conant, a soil biogeochemist and chair of the School of Ecosystem Sciences and Sustainability, said CSU is in many ways unique because there are so many people across campus who are passionate about climate change mitigation and adaptation. He said he was in the lead.
“At CSU, we are problem solvers,” Conant said. “People who are serious about this field, even outside of CSU, think of us as a ‘climate solutions university.’. ””
Conant and his research partners are working on a new solution-oriented science they call “biotransformative carbon removal.” Current options for reducing carbon dioxide include artificial solutions and changes in land management, such as carbon sequestration and tree planting. Conant said artificially created solutions are expensive and it’s difficult to prove whether bio-based solutions will last longer.
“The challenge is that we need to remove probably billions of tonnes of CO2 a year from the atmosphere, and we need to figure out how to do it quickly and correctly,” he added.
Conant’s research team is trying to identify resistant compounds, such as rare sugars, and coax plants into making them. In theory, a crop with this property would consume carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and produce biomass, some of which would remain stored in the soil.
“We believe biotransformative CDR has the potential to deliver verifiable, reliable, and durable carbon removal at low cost and has the potential to be rapidly scalable.” Conant he said. “We see this as a potentially transformative solution.”
Conant and Paustian, along with professors Francesca Cotolfo and Jason Quinn, lead one of CSU’s three thematic units of excellence. Carbon Management TUNE will be awarded a grant of up to $800,000 in 2023 from the Office of the Vice President for Research, matched by units and individuals across campus, to build a strong foundation in carbon management at CSU. The funds invested a total of $1.2 million. The unit brings together researchers and educators from seven different universities to work towards innovative solutions such as biotransformation CDR.
Recognizing the need for a workforce trained in the latest climate science, TUNE also offers CSU’s Carbon Management Education, in addition to programs such as a Master of Science in Professional Science, a Certificate in Carbon Management, and a degree in Restoration Ecology. We plan to expand our support activities. Last year, CSU added courses on carbon finance and carbon market protocols to meet employee demand for understanding this rapidly evolving field.
“We are making every effort to make CSU the go-to institution for carbon management education,” Conant said.
interdisciplinary perspective
A few years ago, so many CSU scientists were working on soil carbon climate solutions that they weren’t always aware of each other’s work. The Soil Carbon Solutions Center was established in 2021 to bring together experts from across campus to collaborate.
“There was already technical expertise in soil carbon at CSU, and there were many people in other departments and universities working on these topics from different perspectives and from different professional backgrounds. ” said center director Jane Zelikova, an ecologist and teacher. She is a member of the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, adding that the center has led to partnerships between researchers who would not otherwise collaborate.
Zelikova and Deputy Director Lauren Gifford, a political geographer, work hard to ensure that social science and stakeholder voices are integrated into the center’s work. They are collaborating with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Terraforming Soil Energy and Earthshot Research Center, with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy. Gifford and Zelikova surveyed farmers and ranchers to understand how they make land management decisions and to explore the “feasible soil carbon sequestration potential,” meaning that people are developing it in the lab. We plan to estimate how much of the technical potential can be achieved by being willing to implement the following practices.
“Lauren and I are committed to ensuring that as these newly designed approaches are developed, the way they are developed and deployed is based on the perspectives and decisions of the land managers responsible for implementing them. Our focus is on these solutions being implemented on the ground,” Zelikova said.
The center is also launching a series of educational activities, including a professional development carbon finance bootcamp to be held in May at the CSU Spur campus in Denver.
“More and more people are getting involved in climate action, but they don’t have enough knowledge about how carbon finance works,” Zelkova said. “We want to deliver that quickly and also provide opportunities for people to continue their education without having to go back to school full-time.”
The Center is a major contributor to the new Colorado-Wyoming Climate Resilience Engine. The engine is a $160 million regional research hub funded by the National Science Foundation that will foster partnerships and help communities monitor, mitigate and adapt to climate change.
“We only have this planet. We have a responsibility and a selfish interest to take care of it,” Zelkova said. “As a major emitter, the United States has a responsibility to do that, so it’s important that universities like ours take the lead.”
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