Ocean iron fertilization. Source: Woods Hole
From the best laid plans of mice and men department.
In the late 1980’s, the late John Martin advanced the idea that carbon uptake during plankton photosynthesis in many regions of the world’s surface ocean was limited not by light or the major nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus, but rather by a lack of the trace metal iron. Correlations between dust input to the ocean (which is the major source of iron) and past climate changes and CO2 levels, led Martin’s to exclaim “Give me half a tanker of iron and I’ll give you the next ice age”.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute wrote a paper about it Effects of Ocean Fertilization with Iron to Remove Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere Reported April 2004 News Release from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
From Slashdot and New Scientist:
Earlier this month, the controversial Indian-German Lohafex expedition fertilised 300 square kilometres of the Southern Atlantic with six tonnes of dissolved iron.
This triggered a bloom of phytoplankton, which doubled their biomass within two weeks by taking in carbon dioxide from the seawater. The dead phytoplankton were then expected to sink to the ocean bed, dragging carbon along with them. Instead, the experiment turned into an example o f how the food chain works, as the bloom was eaten by a swarm of hungry copepods.
While the experiment failed to show ocean fertilization as a viable carbon storage strategy, it has pushed the old “My dog ate my homework” excuse to an unprecedented level.
h/t to Dan Watts (no relation)
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I can’t even IMAGINE anyone being even remotely surprised by this. Not even remotely. Not even the tiniest little bit.
In the future, I will be referring to this as the ultimate example of a ridiculous idea that almost everyone not involved could see wouldn’t work, and a textbook example of the law of unintended consequences. Even with only high school biology I knew this was going to go something like this.
Also, in the future these types of things (and we will see more of them) will be referred to as a sort of “crazy time”, when reason and sanity took a back seat to the hype and hyperbole of “climate change” and “mitigation”. Maybe we just need giant leeches to “bleed” the planet…
Wouldn’t it have been easier to go to the corner pet store and buy 6 tons of fish food to dump into the ocean? Same result!!!
Well this is what global warming is really all about:
It’s illegal to feed wild animals.
And the unintended consequences of the study, was a huge increase in the incidence of diabetes in squid.
It only works when all other necessary conditions are right. All the other nutrients from colder deeper water have to be mixed into the warmer upper layer. Predator populations have to be low (because they eventually starved after eating up the plankton and died out to lower numbers) as the blooms begin. And dust needs to be a continuous feed, not a once and we’re done thing. The article answered some of the questions that lead scientists to understand natural phenomena. Not a bad thing. But spin will destroy this important bit of information and we will walk away still scratching our heads, knowing nothing. The null hypothesis proven is as instructive as the null hypothesis not supported. This narrowly defined study with its narrowly defined hypothesis, inadvertently revealed a major finding if eyes are open to it.
I think we are seeing the last gasps of ocean iron fertilization as a carbon storage strategy,”
But it’s great for the whales, so maybe when the threat of CAGW is debunked, greenies will embrace this fertilization technique.
Sounds to me like all they did was give a boost to the food chain by providing an abundance of the lowest organism on it, while simultaneously eliminating the idea of carbon capture by these means.
Ever hear of two birds with one stone?
Maybe the Japanese can use this as a “whale hunting offset.” Dump the Iron, Save the Whales!
I don’t understand how the experiment is a failure. The goal was to take CO2 out of the air and grow biomass in the ocean. Why does it matter what the form of the biomass takes? Eventually all biomass dies and goes to the bottom. What am I missing?
“complex chain of events”, “difficult to control”. All that is missing here is the crackling and interference on the last radio message sent by the group.
More worrying is that as the hype gets shriller and the “schemes” get more insane eventually some real damage will be done.
A quick glance here (centre of page) has a host of top doom mongers arguing about a scheme to take land from those not using it correctly and cover it in “biochar” to remove excess CO2. Apparently it will be cooked up on an industrial scale using huge microwave ovens – you just couldn’t make this stuff up.
Hah! Last year I wrote a note for a local newspaper (Milenio) talking about the generation of this problem from “fertilizing” the oceans with iron. As always, this people think that the Universe is static. They have to be thankful their luck for not have caused a major disaster, eutrophication, for example. This failure reveals how little those people know on nature works. They’re doing the same on climate and physics.
Well at least plankton grew initially to support part of his hypothesis. Cloud seeding remains, of course, the most down and dirty practical way of actually cooling the earth of we needed to.
Not that nature isn’t helping recently…
Phytoplankton are not massive enough to sink very fast. Some research has shown that their remains (diatom frustules) are transported to depth in copepod fecal pellets. But even the recycling of those in upper water layers probably is significant. One would expect a very slow sequestration of carbon anyway, based on the fact that average worldwide sedimentation rates are only a couple of cm per millennium. Fertilization is for farming. Somebody might want to try fishing in that 300 sq km test plot.
Could this be a way of feeding the world’s population? “Fertilize” the oceans with iron dust, increase biomass and let the food chain do the rest? Sounds interesting.
Where y’all are seeing a failure of carbon sequestration, I’m seeing a potential deep-sea aquaculture opportunity. Assuming, of course, that you could a) control the critters reaping the bloom, b) keep the predators at bay before you harvested and c) resolved the ownership issue of your open-sea cropland.
‘Cause $600 worth of fertilizer for even a minor harvest of giant shrimp or some other commercial shellfish off of three hundred square miles of area sounds like a pretty good deal.
I propose a massive government program to educate the amphipods on the value of becoming vegetarian.
The copepods will still eat the phytoplankton (being vegetarians themselves), but will then be allowed to live full, productive copepod lives before finally taking the carbon with THEM to the bottom when they die.
I would think red dust blown into the oceans from deserts would be the natural version of this experiment.
Now that’s funny! We’re going to change climate with a half tanker of iron. The earth is um, big guys!
—
Jeff C made an amazing discovery on the antarctic paper.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/auto-matic-correlation/
I guess I’m missing something. Can someone tell me why it matters if the carbon ended up in amphipods rather than at the bottom of the ocean?
Maybe six tons in 300 sq. km. was too much? They really need to do the experiment on a curve varying levels of iron. There might well be a lower threshold in which results may be more favorable.
I just recently saw a program where they were talking about the deep ocean “abyssal snow”. It seems that the dead bodies of the various plankton end up getting stuck together in clumps which causes them to fall more rapidly.
But what bothers me is that these are the same people that complain about ocean acidification and adding this iron probably results in a local acidification that changes the pH and allows those plankton to absorb nutrients better.
Adding iron is an easy way to lower pH in soils, I would expect it to work the same way in ocean water.
geo –
The big deal is that the result of the experiment was different from the prediction. In “science” this makes it a complete failure… (but what does “science” have to do with AGW, anyway? Other than its perversion.)
And I agree, this is a great way to accomplish other tasks, but although not a hand-waving leftist environmentalist loon, I still think it is a BAD PRECEDENT to start dumping chemicals of any kind into the ocean for any reason. Imagine the outcry if I was dumping old cars out there!
Sorry, but I must dissagree with the findings of the report – the experiment *did* work!! The whole point was to transfer the carbon which was in a gasious solution in the water (I believe that is the correct way to explain it) to a solid form in the phytoplankton and this *did* occur. Just because it wound up in the stomach of a fish instead of the sea floor is not the issue. The transfer from a gas to a solid took place…which was the whole point. It is the gasious form of the carbon which is increasing in the atmosphere.
Think about that,
Jeff
The study may hint at why/how the CO2 lags temperature as seen in the Vostok Ice Cores. Climate warms by some mechanism (Milankovitch Cycles, solar irradience, whatever). Ocean area available for primary production increases as sea ice diminishes. Land area warms up as the seas remain relatively cool. The greater difference in temperatures increases winds. The winds facilitate upwelling in the oceans, bringing cold, nutrient-rich deep water to the surface. Plankton blooms soar (due perhaps helped by fertilization by stuff on the wind) using CO2 in the oceans (not the air). This facilitates increased population growth of the lower animal life, which in turn causes higher ocean fauna to flourish. The winds bring moisture-laden air to the land. Rain falls. Terrestrial plant flourish while erosion brings more minerals down from the mountains and out onto the shelf waters further helping the plankton blooms. All those critters on land and sea eating the flora and the lower form of fauna emit CO2 into the atmosphere. CO2 in the atmosphere rises AFTER things warm up and primary production ramps up producing more life.
Somebody please point out the big flaw in that explanation. Otherwise, it works for me.