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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As a carbon sequestration trial, it failed, yes. As a science experiment it had quite interesting and conclusive results. Apparantly this is a cheap way to stimulate the production of squid and fish in iron poor areas of the ocean. Not a trivial result, methinks.
When science looked for a replacement for ivory to make billard balls, they found a very useful explosive. A guy looking for chemical dyes found the replacement for billiard balls – plastic.
Arthur C. Clarke wrote a novel, “The Deep Range”, about a future in which the oceans are the breadbasket of the world, with fertilized plankton farms (as mentioned in the New Scientist article), herds of whales bred for milk and meat, artificial upwellings of nutrients, etc. Hey, we fertilize the land, right?
Who would have guessed their computer models didn’t even factor in the food chain…
O/T See the report of the UN – world government: On FOX News
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510937,00.html
“U.N. ‘Climate Change’ Plan Would Likely Shift Trillions to Form New World Economy”
I don’t see why this technique shouldn’t be used to increase fisheries (carefully). I don’t buy the argument that the “natural way” should never be messed with especially when it’s already been messed up, and I’m tired of barely catching any fish in the ocean whenever I try (very infrequently). I will defer to the wiser commentors on whether the experiment was or wasn’t a failure to sequester CO2.
So this is a solution to: ” … global warming could be harming whales, because it restricts their food supplies”
Whether fertilization is being done to reduce carbon dioxide or to feed the whales starved by global warming, it’s a success.
This kind of projects must be seen as pure window dressing.
Window dressing of the AGW/Climate Change Doctrine.
And if people ask themselves why a “respectable” organization like the UN should invent the AGW scare, here is the answer:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510937,00.html
Also take a look at http://green-agenda.com
This organization will spend every Dollar or Euro against us.
Just think of the Durban Meeting which is boycotted by most G20 countries, including Europe and the USA.
Shouldn’t that be “the best laid plankton” 😉
Trying to find a silver lining in the cloud.
On the bright side of this failed experiement, perhaps this website could be of great use:
http://www.squidoo.com/calamarirecipes
I would say the Cajun Style Calamari with Lime Vinaigrette recipe sounds really good, especially since squid should be more plentiful now.
;>P
I see more miracle solutions to come. Governator Schwarzenegger advocates we all become bodybuilders because “Id vill make you biggur end your muzzles vill seqvester de carburns!”
JeffK (07:46:22) :
“”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
Guess you don’t understand the food chain. The photoplankton ended up in the stomach of shrimp, which most of the carbon would have been digested and aspirated as CO2. The small remaining carbon was then ate by the next step up the food chain, digested, and most would have been released as CO2. And on and so forth, all the way up the food chain.
By the way this website sounds like a great way to deal with the remaining small amount of carbon that made it into the squids:
http://www.squidoo.com/calamarirecipes
P Folkens:
“Land area warms up as the seas remain relatively cool”..
Those winds will cool off rapidly the surface. Let us assume a volumetric heat capacity of land area as about 2 J cm-3 K-1 (silica is 1.547, aluminum 2.422).
Water VHC is 4.186 j and air is just 0.001297 j cm-3 K-1
So, water doubles heat capacity of surface (SIAL layer-silica aluminum-), air having 1542 times less heat capacity than surface will transfer rapidly that heat. Water, again, having 3227 times the heat capacity of air will conveniently hold heat for us humans not to die.
The question is: what does heat oceans? , TSI ?, Dr.Svalggardt says it doesn’ t changes, submarine volcanoes and tectonic displacements?
http://www.scielo.org.pe/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1561-08882005000200002&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es
(you can get a good translation of this html using google toolbar)
a mix of all these?.
John Silver (22:51:20) (In the sahara dusts post):
“Hungry shrimp eat climate change experiment”
So it would be good to know commercial shrimps’ formula:
K: 0.9%
P: 0.24%
N: 0.9%
Mg: 0.018%
Fe:0.014%
And if you cut all four legs off bullfrogs, and command them to jump; you will discover that they have all become stone deaf, and not a single one will jump on command.
Yes the experiment was a failure; a failure of data analysis by brain dead researchers; an attribute which seems to be somewhat prevalent in “climate science”.
It is well known that the entire ocean food chain is thoroughly messed up by human overfishing, without understanding the full interractions of the various levels in the chain (I’m quite sure I don’t understand them).
But everybody understands that phytoplankton take up CO2, and that zooplankton eat up the phytos, and move the carbon up the food chain.
I’ve seen reports that the decks of the Titanic wreck are littered with the dea skeletons of zooplankton; which gorged themselves into starvation, and died to rain down on the decks. This has all happened since the first expedition to the wreck was made many years ago; there wasn’t any zooplankton rain back then.
But since then, fisherfolks have depleted not only the game fish species, but also the bait fishes; using them for fertilizer, or cat food, or the Omega-3 snake oil fad. The result is that phyto and zooplankton are totally out of balance because of the disrutions in the upper food chain.
I would say that the experiment was a resounding success; and agree that the approach may have been a bit like a bull in a china shop, so the biologists need to go back to the blackboard, and do some more planning to get the dosages right, and at the same time work on correcting the upper chain disruption.
Copepod skeletons are just as good CO2 repositories as rotting phytoplankton; probably even better. Get some of that CO2 into some bony fishes, and you could make real progress.
Of course the whole idea of carbon sequestration is insane anyway; for CARBON read OXYGEN sequestration. That we don’t need, and our plant friends can use all the carbon they can get their twigs on.
This process or something along those lines could be a valuable tool in restoring ocean fisheries. There’s an article in SCIENCE (yesterday) about the recovery of school fishes (like bait fish). Evidently there’s a critical mass “tipping point”.
George
CodeTech (07:45:27) :
“ Imagine the outcry if I was dumping old cars out there!”
The sea floor off of the Gulf Coast is very poor for fishing. That is because most of the bottom is sand and will not physically support plant life. Over the years, commercial fisherman (and some recreational) have dumped cars to create artificial fishing reefs. The exact locations are jealously guarded secrets because if you know where to find them you can “loot” the other person’s fish.
But wait! There’s more!
Here is a picture of the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany being sunk to create an artificial reef off Florida’s Gulf Coast:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USS_Oriskany_sinking.jpg
In a previous life: I has a friend that was in the business of making fish reefs. Instead of using cars, he made three sided pyramids, about 6 feet high with 6 inch holes cut in the sides. They were weighted so that the would stay put. The idea was that the smaller fish could hide from predators inside the pyramids. Fisherman paid him to drop these and within six weeks or so the change in the profile due to vegetation growth was noticeable (on the fisherman’s “sonar “fish finder”). He had a pretty good market because this was a lot cheaper and easier than dropping cars out there.
I was working in the Jacksonville FL shipyard and they had a project paid for by the government. They had a left over WW II floating dry dock and they were preparing it for an artificial reef. They took out the asbestos insulation and cleaned the oil tanks, etc. The they took it out off the coast and sank it.
As for the thesis of the oricinal post. I agree with Pamela Grey. The science involved is of interest. I belikeve that the information received from a properly run experiment would have been of value. And the idea of this measely amount of iron making a difference is laughable.
It’s just too bad that the whole thing was wrapped in AGW instead of being a straight forward experiment.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack
This is re post from earlier plus update , please read and comment-or can we have a separate thread please?
Crosspatch 06 55 08
has posted probably one of the most significant links ever to appear in this Blog. I followed it through to the UN paper which-if true-is dynamite and IMHO warrants a thread by itself so as not to hijack this one.
Here is the link right through to the UN Discussion document
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/032709_informationnote.pdf
it is indeed a UN document to reorder the world
Whilst everyone should scrutinise each line in order to see what we had always believed was an agenda behind the IPCC (they couldn’t seriously believe all their models could they) some highlights are
Page 6 item 17
page 8 item 25 and 27
page 9 item 34
page 10 item 37
page 14 item 60
Conclusions on p15
Any comments from anyone?
update;
This is the ad hoc working group composition and its aims, that have created the UN report above.
http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2008/awg6/eng/08.pdf
These are the key chairs
harald Dovland Norway –chair minister for environment http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-180526631.html
Mam Konate Mail Vice chair http://www.iisd.ca/climate/cop11/enbots/enbots1704e.html
Chan Woo-kim Republic of korea http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:py3_vPi45-wJ:www.unescap.org/esd/environment/mced/singg/documents/Programme_SINGG_Final.pdf+chan-woo+kim+republic+of+korea&cd=18&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
Ms Christiana Figueres Costa rica http://figueresonline.com/
Nuno Lacasta Portugal http://www.wcl.american.edu/environment/lacasta.cfm
Brian smith new zealand (also a bryan Smith-same person?
Marcelo Rocha Brazil http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file50347.pdf
Talking about carbon markets and here
http://www.iisd.ca/vol12/enb12378e.html
Any comments from anyone?
Tonyb
Hey now, remember the abiotic oil experiment that actually made light sweet crude out of iron and calcium carbonate?
@ur momisugly Jon Jewett (10:31:36) :
I went to Oahu last fall. The ocean floor off Wikkiki is the same-very flat with few place for fish to nest. I took a submarine tour and we only saw sea life around various artificial reefs and other items deliberately sunk there, such as old cargo ships and a twin-engine airplane.
I also seem to recall reading a ‘Mark Trail’ Sunday comic in my childhood about sinking old cars to create artificial reefs.
TonyB,
After reading the relevant passages you posted, I have a few comments:
The UN climate proposals are more stringent than the changes imposed on the defeated nations following WWII, and they are aimed directly at the U.S. and the West. They are hostile, and they are based on fraudulent science as a means to an end.
Following the end of WWII the Soviets expropriated not only massive amounts of industrial equipment from Germany, but also tens of thousands of highly educated engineers and scientists, and made them slaves of the Russian state. Almost none of those individuals were ever released or repatriated. The immediate result was the detonation of the Soviet Union’s first atomic bomb, less than one year after the war ended. Russia’s first hydrogen bomb test occurred only a matter of months after the first U.S. test.
[The West, despite what is portrayed in history books, took similar actions. For example, the giant cranes and gantrys lining Long Beach harbor were dismantled in Germany at the end of the war and moved to California; taken with no compensation as the spoils of war.]
The UN now demands nothing less than the complete surrender of the West to its version of world socialism, with the UN as world dictator. The spoils of this undeclared war are in the posted documents; industry will be forcibly relocated to other countries, with no compensation. Taxes will be raised as high as necessary to enable this theft — all in the name of “combating climate change.”
It is all there in the UN documents. IMHO, simply evicting the UN from the host country is completely inadequate. The UN is the enemy. They are extremely hostile, and must be destroyed. It is quite clearly them or us.
It should be pointed out that the latest move in this concerted effort is toward a single world currency. Why? Because along with a world monetary system, there must also be a world police force to prosecute financial crimes, and a world court to adjudicate financial crimes. Note that financial “crimes” were high on the list of Soviet offenses committed by the kulaks [the Russian middle class, which was forcibly exterminated].
Climate alarmism is just part and parcel of the deliberate move toward a dictatorial world government. It is simply a means to an end, as is the demand for a world currency. And in the approaching world government, there will be zero sympathy for Western values, because those involved in the UN agenda do not possess Western values.
I desperately want to be wrong about this.
But I am not wrong. Look, and you will see it happening.
O/T — but do I see something that might just turn out to be a sunspot?
Smokey
e UN is the enemy, and must be destroyed. It is quite clearly them or us.”
But. tell me, who is behind this?, is it a NGO, a “secret society” like Hitler’ s Thule Society, or who/what else?
Tony,
You forgot Agenda 21.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21
http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/index.htm
“Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment.”
Note how they have planned to act on such a vast level without asking any population for approval. Aren’t agendas and manifestos supposed to be presented by representative politicians to a voting public instead of being crafted by faceless unelected bureaucrats who make the decisions for everyone?
Smokey,
You are correct. The UN is the enemy of democracies everywhere. It has become a refuge of dictators, socialists, ecomaniacal utopianists, and scoundrels. The hundreds of UN scandals seem to have taught us nothing. When they are put down, we will be well rid of them.
It seems that of all world leaders, only Vaclav Klaus has their true measure.
Smokey
Thanks for taking the time to read this. We could see the models and evidence from the IPCC did not match up with each other, and some are so slanted you must wonder how they got past peer review.
I have always been reluctant to accept the IPCC/UN had an agenda, but this document clearly describes the world order they seek to put in place through scaring everyone with tales of catastrophic climate change
“H.L.Mencken wrote:The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Please could other people read this important document. Sorry to go off thread
TonyB
It may be time to revive a plan I penciled up when Richard Branson offered a big prize for carbon sequestration ideas last year. We assemble a fleet of heavy duty ocean going tugboats and send them out to the North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean. When icebergs calve off the ice sheets the tugs move in, latch on, and tow them posthaste to coastal areas adjacent to the worlds deserts. This is already being done in the North Atlantic to move the bergs out of the shipping lanes, but some engineering will be required to perfect the technique for long hauls. The bergs would be beached on the coasts and the melt water collected and piped out to the desert to irrigate new plant growth. Since we want to tie up the carbon for long time, I’m thinking Sequoias or California Redwoods genetically modified for desert climate and faster growth might be the ticket, but plant selection is something that needs more analysis, Theoretically the melt water could be diverted for potable water or chilled water for residential or commercial uses before proceeding to the irrigation plan. If some of the plant mix is food or biofuel types we may be able to develop a market for the bergs, but if the weather persists as it has recently we may end up having to drill and blast to keep the flow of bergs going, Most of the technology required for the plan already exists, although realtime access to ocean surface currents would facilitate the speed and economy of delivering the bergs. Admittedly I’d had a few beers when I came up with this, so I can’t warranty that I’ve covered all the bases, but hey, what could possibly go wrong?!