Our lab works broadly on biogeochemistry and ecosystem science, applied to a wide variety of both theoretical and practical questions. We enjoy trying to understand some of nature's complexity, and we believe strongly in applying objective science to sustaining the biosphere and human society. Our research encompasses a wide range of spatial scales, from microbial to ecosystem, regional, and global. Our research includes a broad range of inter-connected topical areas, illustrated below. Note that much of our research and many of our papers fall into two or more of these categories. Click on a topic to further explore research in the Howarth-Marino lab.
Recent News
2018
Webinar for Beyond Gas Coalition
Bob presented a webinar titled "Methane and Global Warming in the 21st Century" to the Beyond Gas Coalition on March 21st. They have made the webinar available on YouTube at this link.
2018
Publication wins John H. Martin Award
The John H. Martin Award is presented by the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) to a paper that led to fundamental shifts in research focus and interpretation of a large body of previous observations. The 1996 paper, titled "Regional Nitrogen Budgets and Riverine N & P Fluxes for the Drainages to the North Atlantic Ocean: Natural and Human Influences", published in the journal Biogeochemistry, estimated Net Anthropogenic Nitrogen Inputs to the Gulf of Mexico and was published in a special issue based on a Scope workshop in 1993: Nitrogen Cycling in the North Atlantic Ocean and Its Watersheds.
You can read more about the article and award on the ASLO website and can view the full citation and download the article at this link.
2017
Howarth speaks at COP23
Bob is currently at COP23, helping launch the "Put Climate on Pause Coalition" -- a group of scientists, NGOs and country delegations calling upon the UN Climate Change to adopt a new greenhouse gas accounting framework, and is promoting the use of both 20 year and 100 year time frames for comparing methane and CO2 emissions.
On Tuesday morning, he participated in the "Put Climate on Pause Coalition Launch", which is available to watch on-demand at this link.
And later on Tuesday he will give a press conference titled "Is the global spike in methane emissions caused by the natural gas industry or animal agriculture? Reconciling the conflicting views." You can view more information and download his slides from the "Climate Docs" link in the header, and you can live-stream the press conference at 10am EST or watch it on-demand after the event at this link.
2017
Howarth lab at CERF in Providence
Bob, Roxanne, Dennis, Melanie, and Katie attended the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation meeting in Providence, RI and presented our recent work on estuarine response to eutrophication, eelgrass habitat response to N loading, and coastal nutrient budgets.
2017
Howarth speaks at natural gas conference in Spain
On June 22, Bob gave a talk at the International Seminar on the Development of Natural Gas in Europe and Spain, titled "The effects of methane on climate change." A video of the talk (in English with Spanish subtitles) is available at this link on YouTube.
2016
Howarth briefs White House Staff
On May 27, Bob briefed senior staff and scientists of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy in a 90-minute briefing titled "Natural Gas and Methane After COP21". You can read the Cornell news article about the talk here.
2016
Public talk on natural gas expansion
Bob discussed the climate and economic impacts of natural gas expansion in a series of three public events co-sponsored by the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, The Climate Times, and NC Warn. Videos and information about the event can be viewed here.
View archived news stories.
Recent Publications
Zhang et al, 2017b. Anthropogenic phosphorus inputs to a river basin and their impacts on phosphorus fluxes along its upstream-downstream continuum. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences
Zhang et al, 2017a. Influence of rapid rural-urban population migration on riverine nitrogen pollution: perspective from ammonia-nitrogen. Environmental Science and Pollution Research
Hong et al, 2017. Advances in NANI and NAPI accounting for the Baltic drainage basin: spatial and temporal trends and relationships to watershed TN and TP fluxes. Biogeochemistry
Goyette et al, 2016. Changes in anthropogenic nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the St. Lawrence sub-basin over 110 years and impacts on riverine export. Global Biogeochemical Cycles
Hong and Howarth, 2016. Greenhouse gas emissions from domestic hot water: heat pumps compared to most commonly used systems. Energy Science & Engineering
Gao et al, 2016. A system dynamics model for managing regional N inputs from human activities. Ecological Modelling
Howarth, 2015. Methane emissions and climatic warming risk from hydraulic fracturing and shale gas development: implications for policy. Energy and Emission Control Technologies