From the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona a suggestion that ocean CO2 sequestration is driven by iron laden dust blown into the oceans that cause phytoplankton blooms, resulting in the ocean as a CO2 sink. It’s another take on the proposed experiment from a couple of years ago where a researcher wanted to drop a barge of powdered iron into the ocean to watch what happens. It was actually tried, and was reported to be a failure.
Climate in the past million years determined greatly by dust in the Southern Ocean
A group of scientists led by researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich) has quantified dust and iron fluxes deposited in the Antarctic Ocean during the past 4 million years. The research study published in Nature evidences the close relation between the maximum contributions of dust to this ocean and climate changes occurring in the most intense glaciation periods of the Pleistocene period, some 1.25 million years ago. Data confirms the role of iron in the increase in phytoplankton levels during glacial periods, intensifying the function of this ocean as a CO2 sink.
Dust, formed by particles of soil, plants, etc. affects the climate by altering the energetic balance of the atmosphere and provides iron and other micronutrients necessary to marine organisms. Scientists considered that dust fluxes deposited by the wind into the Antarctic Ocean increased during glacial periods and that iron fertilisation may have stimulated marine productivity, contributing significantly to the CO2 reduction in the atmosphere during the most recent Pleistocene glacial periods (in the past 800,000 years). However, the magnitude of these effects and their role in the evolution of the climate system had remained unclear.
Records of the period studied in this research work – the longest and most detailed up to date on the Southern Ocean – reveal a sharp increase in dust and iron inputs during the Climate Transition of the Middle Pleistocene Epoch (1,250,000 years ago) in which fluxes tripled. This transition marked a global climate change with the beginning of glacial periods lasting 100,000 years, in comparison to the gradual intensification of glacial cycles occurring in the three million years immediately before, when periods lasted 41,000 years.
For the first time results show the close connection between the highest levels of dust deposited in the Antarctic Ocean and the lowest concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, which gave way to the appearance of the deep glaciations typical of Earth’s recent history. The study indicates that the dust most probably played a key role in fertilising microscopic algae of the Southern Ocean, emphasising its role as a CO2 sink. These microorganisms grow uptaking the CO2 found in the atmosphere and when they die they sink releasing carbon into the depths of the ocean.
For Antoni Rosell Mele, ICREA researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of UAB, and Alfredo Martínez Garcia, currently researcher at EHT Zürich who earned his PhD at UAB, the research carried out offers new clues on the causes behind the most intense glaciations of the Pleistocene Epoch, particularly on how interactions between dust with oceanic biology influence CO2 and the climate. It also allows scientists to understand how future changes in atmospheric circulation and the superficial biology of oceans can make the Antarctic Ocean change the efficiency with which it captures and removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
There are in fact initiatives to fertilise the Southern Ocean with iron with the purpose of reproducing the natural process observed during glaciations and reduce today’s levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. It is an issue which has generated much controversy. “Although our data indicates that this process occurred naturally during glacial periods, we must take into account that ocean circulation was completely different to what it is now, and this made the role of iron fertilisation more efficient in capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. There are also several unknown aspects of what could happen to marine ecosystems if iron were artificially added in large quantities, and therefore its commercial application continues to be unviable at the moment”, researchers conclude.
Researchers from the universities of Edinburgh and Princeton also participated in the research.
Caption: http://www.uab.es/uabdivulga/img/UAB_InvestigadorsPolsAntartic.jpg
Reference:
Martinez-Garcia, A.; Rosell-Melé, A; Jaccard, S.L.; Geibert, W.; Sigman, D.M.; Haug, G.H. (2011). “Southern Ocean dust-climate coupling during the past 4,000,000 years”. Nature, doi: 10.1038/nature10310.
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Wouldn’t iron dust, and the movements of iron-bearing bacteria on the ocean surface, be influenced by the magnetosphere? Could this be a secondary path for sunspot influence?
‘Wayward Son’ wanted for questioning….
Beat me to it, Independent 🙂
The dust in the ice cores are the highest at periods when the glaciers stop advancing and/or are starting to melt-back – not just when an interglacial warm-up is starting but there are lots of periods when a temporary peak low/peak advance is reached and a warming trend starts.
I have always assumed the dust was due to the loess left-behind as the glaciers are melting-back. When the loess drys out (and no vegetation is growing yet to stablilize it yet) and the wind blows (and there is likely very strong winds next to continental glacial fronts) – huge dust storms result. In addition, there is much less rainfall and vegetation during the ice ages so even the deserts are three times bigger than today.
The glaciers are melting back at up to 5 kms per year so that leaves behind a huge amounts of small-grained sand and clay deposits covering hundreds of kilometres. A great cold sand, dried-out mud desert.
There is less correlation of the dust to CO2 levels that the dust to these peak melt periods. I’m more inclined to blame changes in ocean temperature for the changes in the CO2 levels which is much more closely tied one-for-one-with-an-800-year-lag than the dust numbers.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre Wind scene video clip:
“Oh laugh, Curtin, old boy. It’s a great joke played on us by the Lord, or rate, or nature, whatever you prefer. But whoever or whatever played it certainly had a sense of humor. Ha! The gold has gone back to where we found it! This is worth ten months of suffering and labor!”
Caution: Ending spoiler…
http://youtu.be/3IX-sP6QP4k
” Since the startup of Sea Water Reverse Osmosis ( SWRO ) Desalination during 1980, Middle East desalination systems are dumping Millions of Tons of Ferric Chlorode ( FeCl3 ) , pre treatment chemicals along with Sulphuric Acid ( H2 SO4 ) to Oceans & Seas. This had already created algal bloom many times in the mouth of ARABIAN GULF “
Still stuck on CO2 as the driver of climate rather than a indicator.
@ur momisugly Independent
September 1, 2011 at 5:09 pm
Truly an all time classic!
I can’t get it out of my mind. I think the dog is now getting tired of multiple replays.
Why not just accept that cooler ocean waters absorb more CO2 from the air and reduce atmospheric CO2 content along with the coolness reducing the level of activity of the entire global biosphere?
There seems to be a desperate need to find new ways of avoiding the inconvenient implications of the most likely scenarios.
Independent,
Shouldn’t someone call the Green Police to report all that CO2 on the stage?
I have always been fascinated by Australia’s role in SH climate. It seems to alternate between being a vast sink of water/water vapour with vast inland seas river and lakes (as at present) then dries out to a baking hot arid and DUSTY continent. These wildly diverging states surely influence its role as a component in the SH climate system.
I’m sure someone will englighten me.
Because they’ve got it arse about face, as per usual. Colder => drier, drier => dustier. Also, colder => more oceanic CO2 absorption. That’s what the evidence actually points to in the real world.
In their world, dustier => less atmospheric CO2, less atmospheric CO2 => colder. Does their study have anywhere near the resolution to demonstrate a reversal of the usual order?
Let me get this straight–they’re saying, whatever the mechanism, that a reduction in CO2 caused the last Ice Age?
And we’re trying to limit, I say limit CO2 in the atmosphere?
Is somebody nuts? (Or perhaps they just have an insatiable fetish for glacier skiing!)
This is a very important post, well done. The very first link shows the shortage of deep simple scientific thinking. The experiment worked because at the very top of the chain is the whale and dead whales sink to the bottom as do the plankton that are not eaten. Plus look at the general growth of life.
Secondly the dust. Natural Geographic did a program on the Bahamian Blue Holes. They discovered that a massive dust storm, rich in Iron enveloped the Islands about 12,000 years ago. This at the time of the Younger Dryas period. This resulted in the extinction of many species of animals on the Islands, the arrival of humans and the extinction of the Clovis culture on the mainland.
The case for Iron seeding and the link to particulates having a major effect on climate, is very clear. As is the selective ability of modern science.
http://www.globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com
It is still our fault because all we are is dust in the wind…
There was a study in Science magazine in the late 1990s which found that at the beginning of the last ice age, areas in Patagonia got drier and windier, and about 50 times more dust from Patagonian deserts blew into the south Atlantic ocean. Over a period of several thousand years, the steady supply of iron on the dust particles provided the nutrient which limited growth of phytoplankton in its absence. Gradually, CO2 levels were reduced, as the remains of phytoplankton and their grazers fell to depth. Some of this detritus (containing carbon and oxygen) ended up in the seabed, but most were consumed by bacteria, and the carbon was released as CO2 in the deep ocean. After several thousand years, the oceans contained enough additional CO2 that atmospheric levels were reduced by 40 ppm. That isn’t actually very much, in comparison to the roughly 110 ppm increase that we’ve seen in the last 200 years, but it is nonetheless remarkable.
Iron seeding experiments aren’t failures; they show that in parts of the southern ocean which are iron limited, the addition of iron can stimulate huge amounts of phytoplankton growth, followed by explosions of their grazers, zooplankton.
The reason that seeding southern oceans with iron won’t be a panacea for increased CO2 emissions is that if we were to try to reduce atmospheric CO2 by enough to make a difference, in decades rather than in millenia, we would create dead zones in the Antarctic, places without enough oxygen for species to live. The bacteria need oxygen to consume the detritus falling from the ocean surface. Over a thousand years, however, iron seeding would be a workable idea.
Better to see if we actually have a big problem, and if we do, then come up with a better solution. The current rate of warming is currently far below the IPCC projections for the amounts of GHGs and black carbon and ozone and methane that have been emitted in the last 100 years or so.
Where’s Anna these days — best of the WUWT comments?
When Sun’s Too Strong, Plankton Make Clouds
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/0702_planktoncloud.html
LOL, they are now discovering iron dust bloom implications on cooling? Is the entire Scientific community functioning in a different timeframe or are they all deaf to their own research?
These microorganisms grow uptaking the CO2 found in the atmosphere and when they die they sink releasing carbon into the depths of the ocean.
Ok. Then what happens to the carbon? The ocean circulation patterns takes it up and dumps it out to the atmosphere? It sits in a neat little package? Oceanic carbon gnomes play carbon tennis? It sinks to the ocean floor, never to be released? And if these phytoplankton blooms capture carbon and then release it into the ocean, why are PH levels neutralizing when the blooms are at a lesser state?
Also, what’s the explanation for the failure of the experiment where they tried to seed the phytoplankton with iron?
So true – excellent tune. 😉
So let’s see if we can put 2 and 2 together without the need for a computer model that pooches the result.
What exactly is the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona study suggesting and which of the moronic Green groups do we need to tie to their beds so they don’t Pooch the Puppie and destroy our planet with stupid schemes?
I remember my biology teacher at high school in 1984 telling us that it had been suiggested that dumping a ship load of iron oxide in the ocean could cause an ice age due to the sudden increase in phytoplankton. This is obviously an old and unoriginal idea.
David said
Quote
Ok. Then what happens to the carbon?
Unquote
Over time, as climate is, it forms chalk, limestone and marble or coal or some oil.
It’s rocket science
Geoengineering by dumping iron into the ocean is just begging for a nasty emergence of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Sure, too little iron can be limiting – but in most biological systems, too much iron strongly promotes inflammatory responses which wreak havoc on organs and systems, and then causes death.
Meanwhile, these guys are already behind the times – some new players are in town. 😎 Well, ok, they’re NOT new to town, they’ve been here but gone unrecognized and I’m sure many more are just waiting for discovery. I was about to post the following article to tips & notes, but seems applicable here too…
Up from the depths: How bacteria capture carbon in the ‘twilight zone’
September 1, 2011 http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-depths-bacteria-capture-carbon-twilight.html
Located between 200 and 1,000 meters below the ocean surface is a “twilight zone” where insufficient sunlight penetrates for microorganisms to perform photosynthesis. Details are now emerging about a microbial metabolic pathway that helps solve the mystery of how certain bacteria capture carbon in the dark ocean, enabling a better understanding of what happens to the carbon that is fixed in the oceans every year. They appear in the September 2, 2011, edition of Science.
Understanding the flow and processing of carbon in the world’s oceans, which cover 70 percent of Earth’s surface, is central to understanding global climate cycles, with many questions remaining unanswered. Between 200 and 1,000 meters below the ocean surface exists a “twilight zone” where insufficient sunlight penetrates for microorganisms to perform photosynthesis. Despite this, it is known that microbes resident at these depths capture carbon dioxide that they then use to form cellular structures and carry out necessary metabolic reactions so that they can survive and reproduce. Details are now emerging about a microbial metabolic pathway that helps solve the mystery of how certain bacteria do this in the dark ocean. (continued)