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Tonnes of iron dumped off B.C.'s coast
- praptak 14y agoCarbon credits for dumping iron into the ocean? The artificial plankton bloom may absorb some CO2 but how permanent is that? It would be nice to see some research on that.
- Tloewald 14y agoWell I guess this <del>asshole</del> entrepreneur is doing the research.
- yxhuvud 14y agoMy guess would be 'very'. Dead plankton will fall to the floor of the ocean and will be removed from circulation that way. After all, that is how the oceans were cleared from iron sulphate in the first place.
- kaybe 14y agoOnly a tiny part of the dead plankton will make it to the bottom, most falls apart in the top layers and the CO2 will stay in circulation. The effect is tiny, thus it takes a long time to naturally have an influence.
- njharman 14y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton#Biogeochemical_significance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton#Biogeochemical_signifi... Primarily by grazing on phytoplankton, zooplankton provide carbon to the planktic foodweb, either respiring it to provide metabolic energy, or upon death as biomass or detritus. Typically more dense than seawater, organic material tends to sink. In open ocean ecosystems away from the coasts this transports carbon from surface waters to the deep. This process is known as the biological pump, and is one reason that oceans constitute the largest carbon sink on Earth.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoThe basic theory is the plankton grow, turn CO2 in to plankton, which get eaten. The result is less CO2 in the air. How much less is an interesting question. What I find amazing is how controversial this is. If you can actually pull a significant fraction of CO2 out of the atmosphere and return it to the sea, why wouldn't you do that? It would seem to be potentially a huge weapon to wield against global warming and relative to other ideas is both actionable and hugely less expensive. And yet even modest experiments are fought tooth and nail. Its a strange dissonance that conspiracy theorists love but I write up to a more generalized fear of change. It will be interesting to see how this one turns out.
- ryanmolden 14y agoI think people are afraid of messing things up worse through unforeseen consequences. If my web app tries something new and crashes, no big deal. If you try something new in the planet's atmosphere and it crashes, well...big deal :) I am not in that group, but I can sympathize to some degree. Humans have a history of overrating our own competence.
- zipdog 14y agoThe oceans are already absorbed enormous amounts of atmospheric CO2, and it's messing up marine ecosystems by changing pH levels, among other things. It's a major cause of coral loss and possibly of jellyfish population growth. The reason IMO, for fighting things tooth and nail is that the systems we are dealing with are complex and interconnected, sort of like the world economy - which has billions of dollars of modeling yet still can't predict effects of simple changes. Major changes in any ocean system will have unpredictable effects in others.
- justincormack 14y agoAnd coral is a great CO2 absorber...
- uxp 14y agoCoral is a great CO3 absorber. CO2 can acidify the ocean water, which lowers calcification rates affecting the ability to grow carbonate skeletons. Combined with an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere contributing to a global increase in temperature, which coral is extremely sensitive to, and an increase of CO2 anywhere is bad news. Source: http://people.uncw.edu/szmanta/BIO%20585%20CoralReef%20Field%20Course_files/Readings/Gattuso%20etal%20AmerZool%20photosynth%20calcification%20review.pdf http://people.uncw.edu/szmanta/BIO%20585%20CoralReef%20Field...
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- bwb 14y agoya anyone got any links to more info on this process? possible damage? possible gain?
- jsvaughan 14y agoThere's a page linked from the above link: http://planetsave.com/2011/01/26/iron-seeding-of-ocean-may-promote-toxic-plankton/ http://planetsave.com/2011/01/26/iron-seeding-of-ocean-may-p... Which says "...while iron seeding does indeed promote algal blooms, not all alga are equal — some forms can be poisonous to other lifeforms. One such form of plankton — a species of diatom by the name of Pseudo-nitzschia — happens also to be strongly associated with a wide-ranging neurotoxin called domoic acid (DA). The toxin may be a metabolic by-product or perhaps an adaptation (survival strategy) of this planktonic life form." "Given the proposed use of iron fertilization strategies to reduce atmospheric CO2 and ocean acidification, the authors caution: “…consideration of the potentially serious ecosystem impacts associated with DA is prudent."
- cancle 14y agoThis idea has been around for a while, but I didn't realise there were field experiments going on. Basically, iron particles are dumped into the ocean which encourages a massive algal bloom. A proportion of the algae will sink to the bottom of the ocean, trapping the carbon. John Martin, an oceanographer, famously quipped: "Give me half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you the next ice age.” There's a better article here: http://planetsave.com/2012/07/22/geoengineering-news-controversial-ocean-iron-fertilization-experiment-succeeds-as-carbon-sink/ http://planetsave.com/2012/07/22/geoengineering-news-controv...
- tocomment 14y agoThat experiment you reference was 7 tonnes. The article here is 100 tonnes. I wonder if that's enough to make an impact?
- JamisonM 14y agoThis is not a field experiment, it is more of a crack-pot scheme. There is very little science going on here. I suppose the most unfortunate part of this misguided adventure is that very little will really be learned from it since it was not designed as a proper experiment.
- tocomment 14y agoIs it possible we'll see noticable global cooling from this or is it too small? Legal/approved or not, it seems like this will be a great data point and it will be good to have as much information as possible on strategies like this is global warming ever becomes a pressing issue.
- kaybe 14y agoFor any noticable effects on temperature it is way too small. Similar experiments have been conducted by Scientists near Antarctica in the past (including international protest after it became known), resulting in big algae patches visible on satellite images (see the slides in [1] for examples). [1] I'm referring to the slides here: http://www.iup.uni-heidelberg.de/institut/studium/lehre/lehre/Climate_Engineering/11_CE_SS-2012_Climate%20Engineering_Ocean_Fertilization.pdf http://www.iup.uni-heidelberg.de/institut/studium/lehre/lehr...
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- stephengillie 14y agoFrom the article: The Guardian...reports that George's team dumped about 100 tonnes of iron sulphate into the ocean from a fishing boat 370 kilometres west of Haida Gwaii in July. From Wiki: Iron(II) sulfate (Br.E. iron(II) sulphate) or ferrous sulfate is the chemical compound with the formula FeSO4. It is used medically to treat iron deficiency, and also for industrial applications. So it's not like they dumped a bunch of scrap iron parts or old machinery into the ocean. This is a fairly common chemical compound with many biological uses.
- atakan_gurkan 14y agoA simple product that encourages the growth of simple organisms can be harmful. Try pouring sugar to the pot of a plant. It will encourage the growth of bacteria which will compete with the plant for other nutrients in the soil and in the end harm the plant. Messing with nature like this sounds like a bad idea. _This_ experiment is not necessarily bad, but the risk is too big if you ask me.
- ceejayoz 14y ago> So it's not like they dumped a bunch of scrap iron parts or old machinery into the ocean. No, it's much worse. Chunks of scrap iron isn't going to have much of an effect on the environment when compared to finely ground particles. > This is a fairly common chemical compound with many biological uses. Water's a common chemical compound with many biological uses, but that doesn't make a tsunami non-destructive.
- stephengillie 14y agoIt's still less destructive than an equal-sized equal-energy wave of sulphuric acid.
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- jonathlee 14y agoWhat an incredibly slanted article.
- pav3l 14y agoI was on Haida Gwaii couple years ago with 2 friends. Pretty much every local we have encountered was very friendly and offered us home canned salmon for free. There were golden eagles and huge ravens everywhere. Ancient rainforests. I got the impression that the last thing Haida people needed is technology enhancing their natural resources. The place just seemed perfect. Oh well, I guess there is money to be made, so never mind...
- potatolicious 14y agoThe depletion of salmon stocks goes beyond Haida Gwaii (for those who studied geography earlier, they used to be known as the Queen Charlotte Islands). Chronic overfishing in both Alaska and the rest of BC has contributed to the dramatic loss of salmon population. I don't think the desire to increase the salmon population is in and of itself a bad thing...
- buf 14y agoOur first true James Bond villain
- d2vid 14y agoGreenfinger
- dredmorbius 14y agoThe spy who slimed me.
- gilgad13 14y agoIf the practice of ocean fertilization is illegal, how was he hoping to redeem the carbon credits?