Mar 26 2009
In honor of Earth Day, plant physiologist Alistair Rogers of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory will give a talk, titled "Global Change and the Terrestrial Biosphere," on Wednesday, April 22, at 4 p.m. in the Laboratory’s Berkner Hall. The talk is free and open to the public. All visitors to the Laboratory age 16 and over must carry a photo ID.
Plant Physiologist Alistair Rogers
Since the Industrial Revolution, the increased use of fossil fuels has resulted in a dramatic and unprecedented rise in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Most scientists agree that increasing levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have raised Earth’s temperature, and without a reduction in emissions, will continue to do so.
Terrestrial ecosystems sustain life on Earth through the production of food, fuel, fiber, clean air, and naturally purified water. But how will agriculture and ecosystems be affected by global change? Rogers will describe the impact of projected climate change on the terrestrial biosphere and explain why plants are not just passive respondents to global change, but play an important role in determining the rate of change.
Alistair Rogers earned a B.Sc. in biochemistry and botany from the University College of North Wales, Bangor, in 1994, and a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Essex, Colchester, England, in 1998, the same year he joined Brookhaven Lab as a research associate. He is currently a scientist in Brookhaven’s Environmental Sciences Department. From 2004 to 2005, he was deputy chair of the Earth Systems Science Division, and since 2005 he has been head of the Carbon Cycle Science & Technology Group at the Laboratory. Rogers has been an adjunct faculty member of the University of Illinois at Urbana, Champaign, since 2003, and a member of the editorial advisory board of the journal Global Change Biology since 2007.
Call 631 344-2345 for more information. The Laboratory is located on William Floyd Parkway, one and a half miles north of Exit 68 of the Long Island Expressway.