The electrolytic coproduction of CO and H2 is achieved from air, water, and a single beam of sunlight rather than from fossil fuels. H2 and CO cosynthesis is driven by a single concentrator photovoltaic to simultaneously drive molten hydroxide and molten carbonate electrolyses. The carbon neutral process captures carbon without the need for the preconcentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Unlike Le Quéré et al. (Reports, 22 June 2007, p. 1735), we do not find a saturating Southern Ocean carbon sink due to recent climate change. In our ocean model, observed wind forcing causes reduced carbon uptake, but heat and freshwater flux forcing cause increased uptake. Our inversions of atmospheric carbon dioxide show that the Southern Ocean sink trend is dependent on network choice.

In this article, we report a new route to synthesize diamond by converting "solid" carbon nanofibers with a Spark Plasma Sintering system under low temperature and pressure (even at atmospheric pressure). Well-crystallized diamond crystals are obtained at the tips of the carbon nanofibers after sintering at 1500 °C and atmospheric pressure. Combining with scanning electron microscopy, transmiss...

[1] The exchange of CO2 across the air-sea interface is a main determinant of the distribution of atmospheric CO2 from which major conclusions about the carbon cycle are drawn, yet our knowledge of atmosphere-ocean fluxes still has major gaps. A new analysis based on recent ocean dissolved inorganic carbon data and on models permits us to separately estimate the preindustrial and present air-se...

Until about a decade ago, black carbon (BC) was thought to be the only light absorbing substance in the atmospheric aerosol except for soil or desert dust In more recent years, light absorbing polymeric carbonaceous material was found in atmospheric aerosols. Absorption increases appreciably toward short wavelengths, so this fraction was called brown carbon. Because brown carbon is thermally ra...

How fast greenhouse warming will proceed depends on a large part on how fast carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere. The abundance and growth rate of atmospheric CO2 is determined not only by the rate of anthropogenic emissions but also by the rates of biogeochemical processes that sequester carbon in the land and ocean. The biogeochemical processes in turn responds to and alters climat...

More than 380 Pg of carbon have been released by human activities from fossil fuel combustion and cement manufacturing since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. This carbon release has caused atmospheric CO2 levels to increase by ∼100 ppmv compared to the highest interglacial value of the last ∼800,000 years. Net uptake of carbon by the oceans has caused the surface ocean pH to drop by ...

This review places into context the role that forest ecosystems play in the global carbon cycle, and their potential interactions with climate change. We first examine the natural, preindustrial carbon cycle. Every year forest gross photosynthesis cycles approximately one-twelfth of the atmospheric stock of carbon dioxide, accounting for 50% of terrestrial photosynthesis. This cycling has remai...

The stable carbon isotope compositions of tetrols, erythritol and threitol were determined by gas chromatography/combustion/isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC/C/IRMS). Using four tetrols with various delta(13)C values derivatized by methylboronic acid, the carbon isotope analysis method achieved excellent reproducibility and high accuracy. There was no carbon isotopic fractionation during the ...

Atmospheric brown carbon (BrC) is a collective term for light absorbing organic compounds in the atmosphere. While the identification of BrC and its formation mechanisms is currently a central effort in the community, little is known about the atmospheric removal processes of aerosol BrC. As a result, we report on a series of laboratory studies of photochemical processing of BrC in the aqueous ...