CU News
News from the University of Colorado in Boulder.
CU study: Nitrogen damage to RMNP could become irreversible
Jul 10th
The emissions of nitrogen compounds to the atmosphere are being carried to remote areas of the park, altering sensitive ecosystems, said CU-Boulder Professor William Bowman, who directs CU-Boulder’s Mountain Research Station west of Boulder and who led the study. “The changes are subtle, but important,” he said. “They represent a first step in a series of changes which may be relatively irreversible.”
A new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder indicates air pollution in the form of nitrogen compounds emanating from power plants, automobiles and agriculture is changing the alpine vegetation in Rocky Mountain National Park.
The emissions of nitrogen compounds to the atmosphere are being carried to remote areas of the park, altering sensitive ecosystems, said CU-Boulder Professor William Bowman, who directs CU-Boulder’s Mountain Research Station west of Boulder and who led the study. “The changes are subtle, but important,” he said. “They represent a first step in a series of changes which may be relatively irreversible.”
In other regions of the world, higher amounts of nitrogen pollutants correlate with decreased biodiversity, acidified soils and dead stream organisms like trout, said Bowman. “There is evidence that indicates once these changes occur, they can be difficult if not impossible to reverse. It is best to recognize these early stages before the more harmful later stages happen.”
The study site was an alpine meadow roughly one mile east of Chapin Pass in the Mummy Range of Rocky Mountain National Park. Bowman and his team analyzed the plant communities and soils under ambient levels of nitrogen deposition and compared them to plots with added nitrogen to simulate the increasing atmospheric nitrogen pollution expected in the coming decades. The results indicated changes in plant abundances already were occurring under ambient conditions, but to date no changes in soils were detected.
During the course of the three-year study, rising levels of nitrogen in the soils correlated with large increases in a common species of sedge shown to flourish in other nitrogen addition studies. Bowman said the team anticipates that the diversity of vascular plant species will rise with increasing nitrogen deposition, then decrease with more rare species being excluded by competition from other plant species. “While the changes are relatively modest, they portend that other more environmentally adverse impacts may be on the horizon in Colorado’s alpine areas,” said Bowman.
A paper on the subject was published in the June issue of the Journal of Environmental Management. Co-authors on the study included John Murgel, a former CU-Boulder undergraduate student now completing graduate work at Colorado State University, and Tamara Blett and Ellen Porter of the Air Resources Division of the National Park Service in Lakewood, Colo. The study was funded by the National Park Service.
Previous studies by Bowman and others have shown vegetation changes and soil acidification has been occurring due to increasing nitrogen deposition at other alpine sites in Colorado, including Niwot Ridge. Niwot Ridge is a National Science Foundation-funded Long-Term Ecological Research site administered by CU-Boulder and located adjacent to the university’s Mountain Research Station located some 30 miles west of the city.
Given the projected population growth in Front Range cities in the greater Denver area and increasing agricultural development, nitrogen deposition is expected to increase steadily in Rocky Mountain National Park over the next several decades, said Bowman, a professor in CU-Boulder’s ecology and evolutionary biology department.
The high-elevation ecosystems of the park are a magnet for thousands of visitors each year who have opportunities to see plants and animals well adapted to the severe climate above treeline, said Bowman, but such ecosystems are the most sensitive to adverse impacts from air pollutants. Previous studies by other researchers have documented ongoing changes in the algae found in several of the Rocky Mountain National Park’s high elevation lakes due to nitrogen pollution, he said.
While the park is also a haven for fishermen hoping to catch trout in pristine waters, continued inputs of nitrogen pollutants are a hazard to the health of both trout and their food sources, said Bowman, also a fellow of CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. It starts when the ability of the land plants and soils to take up the nitrogen is exceeded, causing soils to become acidified, he said.
Other parts of the Colorado Front Range have exhibited signs of acidification at the highest elevations, Bowman said. “Once this happens, soluble aluminum leaches from soils and begins to show up in streams and lakes. This aluminum is quite toxic to many aquatic animals,” he said.
“The take-home message is that the amount of nitrogen deposition reaching the tundra in Rocky Mountain National Park has already passed an important threshold and may lead to more serious environmental impacts,” said Bowman. “It’s not inconceivable that continued negative ecological impacts in the park due to nitrogen pollution could eventually impact tourism in Colorado.”
Officials from Environmental Defense and Trout Unlimited petitioned the State of Colorado and the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce emissions of nitrogen pollution in 2004. This effort resulted in a 2007 plan to lower nitrogen emissions on a voluntary basis to reduce impacts to Rocky Mountain National Park.
Excel Energy’s recent switch to natural gas in some of its power plants is one of many steps toward limiting nitrogen emissions, said Bowman. Ongoing efforts by air quality managers and representatives from the Colorado agricultural industry are also working on management practices that would lower nitrogen emissions.
In other regions of the world, higher amounts of nitrogen pollutants correlate with decreased biodiversity, acidified soils and dead stream organisms like trout, said Bowman. “There is evidence that indicates once these changes occur, they can be difficult if not impossible to reverse. It is best to recognize these early stages before the more harmful later stages happen.”
The study site was an alpine meadow roughly one mile east of Chapin Pass in the Mummy Range of Rocky Mountain National Park. Bowman and his team analyzed the plant communities and soils under ambient levels of nitrogen deposition and compared them to plots with added nitrogen to simulate the increasing atmospheric nitrogen pollution expected in the coming decades. The results indicated changes in plant abundances already were occurring under ambient conditions, but to date no changes in soils were detected.
During the course of the three-year study, rising levels of nitrogen in the soils correlated with large increases in a common species of sedge shown to flourish in other nitrogen addition studies. Bowman said the team anticipates that the diversity of vascular plant species will rise with increasing nitrogen deposition, then decrease with more rare species being excluded by competition from other plant species. “While the changes are relatively modest, they portend that other more environmentally adverse impacts may be on the horizon in Colorado’s alpine areas,” said Bowman.
A paper on the subject was published in the June issue of the Journal of Environmental Management. Co-authors on the study included John Murgel, a former CU-Boulder undergraduate student now completing graduate work at Colorado State University, and Tamara Blett and Ellen Porter of the Air Resources Division of the National Park Service in Lakewood, Colo. The study was funded by the National Park Service.
Previous studies by Bowman and others have shown vegetation changes and soil acidification has been occurring due to increasing nitrogen deposition at other alpine sites in Colorado, including Niwot Ridge. Niwot Ridge is a National Science Foundation-funded Long-Term Ecological Research site administered by CU-Boulder and located adjacent to the university’s Mountain Research Station located some 30 miles west of the city.
Given the projected population growth in Front Range cities in the greater Denver area and increasing agricultural development, nitrogen deposition is expected to increase steadily in Rocky Mountain National Park over the next several decades, said Bowman, a professor in CU-Boulder’s ecology and evolutionary biology department.
The high-elevation ecosystems of the park are a magnet for thousands of visitors each year who have opportunities to see plants and animals well adapted to the severe climate above treeline, said Bowman, but such ecosystems are the most sensitive to adverse impacts from air pollutants. Previous studies by other researchers have documented ongoing changes in the algae found in several of the Rocky Mountain National Park’s high elevation lakes due to nitrogen pollution, he said.
While the park is also a haven for fishermen hoping to catch trout in pristine waters, continued inputs of nitrogen pollutants are a hazard to the health of both trout and their food sources, said Bowman, also a fellow of CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. It starts when the ability of the land plants and soils to take up the nitrogen is exceeded, causing soils to become acidified, he said.
Other parts of the Colorado Front Range have exhibited signs of acidification at the highest elevations, Bowman said. “Once this happens, soluble aluminum leaches from soils and begins to show up in streams and lakes. This aluminum is quite toxic to many aquatic animals,” he said.
“The take-home message is that the amount of nitrogen deposition reaching the tundra in Rocky Mountain National Park has already passed an important threshold and may lead to more serious environmental impacts,” said Bowman. “It’s not inconceivable that continued negative ecological impacts in the park due to nitrogen pollution could eventually impact tourism in Colorado.”
Officials from Environmental Defense and Trout Unlimited petitioned the State of Colorado and the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce emissions of nitrogen pollution in 2004. This effort resulted in a 2007 plan to lower nitrogen emissions on a voluntary basis to reduce impacts to Rocky Mountain National Park.
Excel Energy’s recent switch to natural gas in some of its power plants is one of many steps toward limiting nitrogen emissions, said Bowman. Ongoing efforts by air quality managers and representatives from the Colorado agricultural industry are also working on management practices that would lower nitrogen emissions.
CU team helps find the “God” particle
Jul 5th
Multinational team searching for answers about dark matter, dark energy, gravity and the fundamental laws of physics.
An international team including University of Colorado Boulder researchers has found the first direct evidence for a new particle that likely is the long sought-after Higgs boson, believed to endow the universe with mass.
Comprised of thousands of scientists, students and support staff working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, the team has been conducting experiments at a facility known as the Large Hadron Collider, a $10 billion, 17-mile underground loop below the Swiss-French border in Geneva that is the world’s most powerful atom smasher. Scientists have been using the LHC to attempt to recreate conditions immediately following the Big Bang by smashing protons together, searching for answers about dark matter, dark energy, gravity and the fundamental laws of physics.
Higgs boson particle thought to give other particles their mass
A huge target of the LHC effort has involved looking for evidence of the elusive Higgs boson, a theoretical elementary particle that has been predicted by physicists. Thought to give other elementary particles their mass, the Higgs boson is the only particle predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics — a scientific theory of how the universe works at the simplest level — that has not been directly detected.
The CERN team is reporting evidence today of an anomalous “bump” in a particular search region of the energy spectrum targeted by the scientists that has a mass of about 125 billion electronic volts, or 125 GeV, said CU-Boulder physics Professor John Cumalat. The research team designed their searches around the theoretical expectations for the decay of the Standard Model Higgs boson particle, he said.
“What we have found is incontrovertible evidence for a new particle at around 125 GeV,” Cumalat said. “To prove it is the Standard Model Higgs particle we will need to carefully measure the new particle’s properties, but with more data these properties can be determined.”
The CU-Boulder high-energy physics team, which includes 15 faculty and students, is involved with the Compact Muon Solenoid, or CMS, one of two massive particle detectors in the LHC and which weighs more than 12,500 tons. The CU team helped design and build the CMS forward pixel detectors — the “eyes” of the device — that help researchers measure the direction and momentum of subatomic particles following collisions, providing clues to their origin and structure.
CU-Boulder Professor William Ford said there were strong hints of the existence of the Higgs boson particle during the CMS particle collisions in 2011. “Now, with the new data looking so similar, it’s hard not to be a believer,” he said. The CERN team hopes to accumulate about four times as much data as they have now on the Higgs boson search project by the end of the year, according to Ford.
“God particle” would being mass and order to the universe
While the Higgs boson was nicknamed “The God Particle” by physicist and Nobel laureate Leon Lederman because its existence would bring mass and order to the universe — a nickname that has been seized on by the media — it is a term physicists do not particularly care for because of its connotations, said Cumalat.
The existence of the Higgs boson theory is crucial to helping to explain the underpinnings of the universe by confirming the Standard Model of physics that explains why fundamental particles — the building blocks of the universe — have mass. Mass is a trait that combines with gravity to give an object weight. Without Higgs boson, there could be no galaxies, stars, planets or people, say researchers.
“It is a very exciting time to be in particle physics and to be involved in an experiment unlocking the meaning of mass,” said CU-Boulder doctoral student Brian Drell.
In addition to Cumalat, Ford and Drell, there are 12 other CU-Boulder people involved in the project: faculty members Uriel Nauenberg, Jim Smith, and Steve Wagner; postdoctoral researchers Alessandro Gaz, Eduardo Luiggi, Keith Ulmer, and Shilei Zang; graduate students Bernadette Heyburn, Andrew Johnson and Troy Mulholland; and technical staff members Eric Erdos and Douglas Johnson.
Sixteen years in the making, the $3.8 billion LHC project involves an estimated 10,000 people and staff from 60 countries, including more than 1,700 scientists, engineers, students and technicians from 94 American universities and laboratories supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science and the National Science Foundation. The United States is providing about $530 million, primarily for the LHC detectors.
Boulder cancels fireworks show due to high fire risk
Jun 27th
Boulder city officials today announced that the annual Ralphie’s Independence Day Blast is canceled due to extremely dry conditions in and around Boulder. The fireworks show had been scheduled for Folsom Field on Wednesday, July 4.
“Public safety was our primary concern in deciding to cancel the fireworks show. Given the current fire in south Boulder, along with fires in neighboring cities and extremely dry conditions, the public safety risk to the Boulder community is significant,” said Boulder City Manager Jane S. Brautigam. “The fire marshal has been monitoring conditions around Folsom Field since early June, and our wildland fire crews have been on daily patrols to prevent wildfires. Given the dangers and Colorado’s statewide fire restrictions, it would be irresponsible to launch 4,000 fireworks over the city this year.”
Boulder Fire Marshal Dave Lowrey said firefighting crews need to remain focused on the current fire. Even if that situation improves, the lack of rain over the past month and the forecasts for continued hot, dry weather would make it very challenging for crews to quickly douse an escaped firework that landed in a dry field.
“We know it’s disappointing to celebrate the Fourth of July without fireworks, but it would be a real tragedy if we went forward and someone’s home caught fire as a result,” Lowrey said.
Lowrey cautioned that individuals should not set off fireworks on their own; it is illegal for individuals to possess or use fireworks within the City of Boulder.
“While it’s disappointing that conditions warrant canceling the fireworks display, public safety is the first priority,” saidLew Kingdom of Wright Kingdom Real Estate, primary sponsor of the event. “The Associates of Wright Kingdom continue to be proud sponsors of Ralphie’s Independence Day Blast, and we’re looking forward to bringing back an amazing show next year.”
Ralphie’s Independence Day Blast has been held at Folsom Field since 1941. The 2012 event was sponsored by the associates of Wright Kingdom Real Estate, the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) and the City of Boulder. Media sponsors included the Daily Camera, KBCO and Boulder Channel 8.