Spring 2025 Neff Public Lecture

Brian Washburn

Combing the Atmosphere for Trace Gases: How Advances in Physics can Help Agriculture

Monday, March 10, 2025

4:30 p.m.

Cardwell 102

Zoom available at https://ksu.zoom.us/j/91497320137

The health and environmental footprint of crop and livestock production can be ascertained by measuring levels of trace gases in the atmosphere produced by these agricultural activities. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has pioneered a Nobel Prize-winning innovation, the laser frequency comb, that can provide trace gas concentrations at relevant time and spatial scales to monitor the sustainability of agroecosystems. I will discuss a long-standing collaboration between Kansas State University and NIST towards monitoring agricultural gas emissions, focusing on methane and ammonia emissions from beef cattle in feedlots and grazing systems. Livestock is a significant anthropogenic source of methane, a trace gas that is more potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Our efforts are towards improving regional inventories of agricultural methane and ammonia production, and providing more precise methods that can be used to validate cattle methane reduction strategies.