Corvallis on the regular is irregular in some of the very best ways. With a world-class research university smack-dab in the middle of town, there’s interesting folks discovering fascinating stuff all year long, every year. This year, there were seven Oregon State University research stories that spurred more attention than most – and what better way to set one’s mind a-wandering for a few minutes than a quick reminiscence of those last twelve months of discovery borne from right here in our fair little valley nexus…
7: Shrinking whales
Gray whales that spend their summers feeding in the shallow waters off the Pacific Northwest coast have undergone a significant decline in body length since around the year 2000, an Oregon State University study found.
The smaller size could have major consequences for the health and reproductive success of the affected whales, and also raises alarm bells about the state of the food web in which they coexist, researchers say.
Recent studies from OSU have shown that whales in this subgroup are smaller and in overall worse body condition than their Eastern North Pacific counterparts. Whale calves that are smaller at weaning age may be unable to cope with the uncertainty that comes with being newly independent, which can affect survival rates. For adult gray whales, one of the biggest concerns is reproductive success.
6: Cooler weather, more fires
Forests in the coolest, wettest parts of the western Pacific Northwest are likely to see the biggest increases in burn probability, fire size and number of blazes as the climate continues to get warmer and drier, according to modeling led by an Oregon State University scientist.
Understanding how fire regimes may change under future climate scenarios is critical for developing adaptation strategies, said the study’s lead author, Alex Dye.
Simulations showed that by the 30-year period beginning in 2035, Washington’s North Cascades region, the Olympic Mountains, the Puget Lowlands and the western Oregon Cascades could see at least twice as much fire activity as was observed during the prior 30 years
5: Pac Wave
Crews are installing the power and data cables that are essential to completing construction of a new wave energy testing facility off the Oregon Coast. The cables will support Oregon State University’s PacWave South, the first pre-permitted, utility-scale, grid-connected wave energy test site in the United States.
When the facility is completed, wave energy developers will be able to test different technologies for harnessing the power of ocean waves and transmitting that energy to the local electrical grid.
The cables will be anchored in an underground vault at Driftwood and will run through conduits from the shore under the beach, then come up out of the seafloor about 1 mile out. From there to the test site, the cable will be buried about three feet under the seafloor. Once the cables are installed, the open ocean test site will be marked with a series of buoys to alert mariners traveling in the area. The first wave energy developer is expected at PacWave South in 2025 and the first cable-connected test is expected in 2026.
4: Iron key to greener lithium batteries
A collaboration co-led by an Oregon State University chemistry researcher is hoping to spark a green battery revolution by showing that iron instead of cobalt and nickel can be used as a cathode material in lithium-ion batteries.
At present, the cathode represents 50% of the cost in making a lithium-ion battery cell. Beyond economics, iron-based cathodes would allow for greater safety and sustainability.
As more and more lithium-ion batteries are manufactured to electrify the transportation sector, global demand for nickel and cobalt has soared. Iron, in addition to being the most common element on Earth as measured by mass, is the fourth-most abundant element in the Earth’s crust. Once storage efficiency is improved, the result will be a battery that works much better than ones currently in use while costing less and being greener.
3: How much water is stored in snow
How much water is held in snowpacks, and for how long? That information, critical to water managers around the globe, has taken on new clarity thanks to a new, more holistic calculation technique developed by researchers in the Oregon State University College of Engineering.
The study by David Hill, a professor of civil engineering, and doctoral student Christina Aragon looked at nearly four decades of snowpack data. Through their new metric, which they call snow water storage, they identified a 22% drop in how much water is held annually in the mountain snowpacks of the lower 48 states.
Because the snow water storage metric can be applied to multiple types of snowpacks, it may become increasingly valuable for monitoring and predicting water resources “amidst a future of increased climate variability.” Hill points out that the past several years in the lower 48 have seen a “feast or famine cycle of extremes when it has come to the where and the when of our snow and rain.” And in general snowpacks have considerably declined over the past 10 to 20 years.
2: Boat striking shark is captured
Hours after tagging an endangered basking shark off the coast of Ireland in April, researchers captured what they believe is the first ever video of a shark or any large marine animal being struck by a boat.
The data, collected by an activity measurement device similar to a FitBit and a connected camera, provided scientists a unique opportunity to learn more about the impact of vessel strikes on large marine animals, which is a rising concern around the globe, said Taylor Chapp, a shark researcher at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center and lead author of the study.
Video from the camera showed visible damage to the shark’s skin, paint marks and a red abrasion but no apparent bleeding or open wound. Vessel strikes are not always immediately lethal, but even non-lethal injuries can have short- and long-term consequences for the affected animal, the researchers noted. The incident highlights the need for additional research on the interactions between water users and basking sharks in the National Marine Park and other hotspots along the Irish coastline.
1: Fastest rate of carbon dioxide rise
Today’s rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide increase is 10 times faster than at any other point in the past 50,000 years, researchers have found through a detailed chemical analysis of ancient Antarctic ice. Kathleen Wendt, an assistant professor in Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, is the study’s lead author.
The findings provide important new understanding of abrupt climate change periods in Earth’s past and offer new insight into the potential impacts of climate change today.
Ice that built up in Antarctic over hundreds of thousands of years includes ancient atmospheric gasses trapped in air bubbles. Scientists use samples of that ice, collected by drilling cores up to two miles deep, to analyze the trace chemicals and build records of past climate. They identified a pattern that showed that big jumps in carbon dioxide occurred alongside North Atlantic cold intervals known as Heinrich Events that are associated with abrupt climate shifts around the world.
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