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)
David Archibald (16:08:11) :
David, so nice to see you here, I’ve read a lot of your work. Could you please expound on the oxygen minimum at 400m? Does this mean (aside from the obvious strict sense) that oxygen is higher at both closer to surface, and higher at greater than this depth? Do you have any charts on the subject to get a gauge of relative levels by depth, and what it might mean for biological activity? I would guess this varies around the world depending on ocean currents and mixing. Sounds like an interesting subject that the researchers might have considered in their, um, eh… model?
Thanks, Mike S.
David Archibald (16:08:11) :
“The bottom of the ocean is relentlessly oxidising. That is why deep sea muds are red. The oxygen minimum is at about 400 metres, part way down the continential slope. To bury carbon there, you have to have a reasonably fast rate of sedimentation.
Seeing the effect they got for six tonnes of dissolved iron (iron chloride?), it could be worthwhile to enhance commercial fisheries. I wouldn’t give up on it”.
Yes, marvelous, now we can fish with magnets instead of hooks and nets!
OT: bsneath wrote:
“We who question AGW are also guilty. Don’t we get a much greater “serotonin rush” when the monthly global temperatures fall, …”
BTW, how’s March shaping up–it would be convenient (and consistent with the roguishness of the Pranksters Above) if it (and succeeding months) were distinctly cooler than normal.
Adolfo Giurfa (11:10:49)
But. tell me, who is behind this?, is it a NGO, a “secret society” like Hitler’ s Thule Society, or who/what else?.
IMO It’s the result of an ideology or affiliation of ideologies which all have a common root belief that the Earth is overpopulated and threatened by mankind. What the Malthus worshipers must do in crediting mankind with the ability to eat himself into oblivion is ignore the fact that mankind’s ability, if left unchecked, to continually adapt and to use his technical ability is what has given the human species such success in numbers as to scare the pants off of Malthusians.
Lets face it we the underclasses were defying natural selection by our technical ability which was spreading rapidly to improve the lives of people on a global scale. It’s being halted, as Malthus believed hunger and disease were natural positive checks implemented by God himself to keep population in check.
I used to enjoy Science Friday on NPR. Now, every commentator has thier pet AGW scare story, and there is no couterpoint. Ira Plato, at times, tries to ask a good question, but the answer is always the same: it’s science, and there is no discussion.
I tried to call in to ask about C02 levels in the Ice Age, but got the pledge line instead.
As for cloud seeding being down & dirty, I agree. Have never seen anything but bad things happen afterwards. Choose your poison. Cloud seeding as a last resort, but it’s still done as an ‘enhancement’.
Someday, I’d like to see the issue have it’s lid blown off.
“The only rational I can see for opposing it, was it would not result in devastated economies or poor people dying of malnutrition while food is burned for fuel. Had this experiment proved to cause a huge amount of carbon sequestration, it was obvious that it was also going to provide a lot of food. The usual suspects were against it.”
Suppose that carbon was sequestered. Suppose also that the experiment, which had unknown outcomes, severely affected our food chain. Or suppose that the sequestered carbon cools temps just enough (we are, as is frequently pointed out, only 0.8 C above the Little Ice Age) to cause unintended weather consequences. There are good reasons to be against this kind of experiment when it directly involves a large portion of the food chain.
Also, there are other plans to cool the Earth, such as placing mirrors in space to reflect sunlight, injecting aerosols into the stratosphere, and so on. It is lunacy. Experiments are one thing, but when you are talking about possibly freezing the planet over because you did your calculations in liters, and your dosage in gallons I get a little concerned. Me thinks experiments of this nature are better left as theories.
“CodeTech (14:26:21) :
Aron, I’m supporting Human Achievement Hour. I will have every light and motor on, running the dishwasher, cars, etc. for that hour.
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/03/24/celebrate-human-achievement-hour/”
Be careful, the next step is you may be monitored with offenders publicly humiliated !
Steve Schapel (13:04:57, 3/27) : “TonyB and Smokey, ‘I have assumed for some considerable time that there is a nefarious political agenda behind all this.
However, my assumption has been about it being *at the expense of* the developing world. Preventing them from “catching up”, controlling them in an imperialist sense. After all, it’s only the rich nations that have any chance at all of producing significant energy from alternative sources.’
So now do I need to revise my viewpoint? If so, why does the AGW scam have such devoted support among the rich and famous, and the big corporates such as General Electric, who have such a big stake in wind and solar, etc?”
IMO, any pseudo-religious movement such as “global warming” has always and forever been about the elites who hope to gain control — whether it is capitalist “captains of industry”, fascist oligarchs, or communist “dictators of (to) the proletariat”. Each elite will have its humanitarian/moral/purification purpose. Today financial interests seem to be at the top of the heap.
The American version of representative democracy with equal-opportunity (not welfare) capitalism is the only antidote to this terrifying human illness of wealth, power, and control of which I am aware. I dearly hope it still works. Two election cycles enmeshed in fraud (2000 and 2008), the second going so far as to negate the Constitutional requirements for President, have dimmed my hopes.
I used to be soothed by fact that computer games showing tit-for-tat (cooperation-for-cooperation and negative response for a non-cooperator) was highly successful in evolutionary terms. It held firm under many attacks. Then the demons came along — if a non-cooperator teamed up with a vicious aggressor, tit-for-tat no longer succeeded. I hope we in the U.S. have not been blind-sided by a similar situation in our present reality.
For all the UN talkers here, please see: 17 Revelations 7:13. Sorry, I don’t normally do that, but it seems relevant to what you are thinking. I would be happy to discuss religious ideas somewhere else, but please don’t turn Mr. Watts’ blog into a religious discussion by responding to this. If you want to discuss, post a link to somewhere appropriate, and I will follow it.
I pray for my friends and family there as well, but the cause is the same EVERY year. I lived in Fargo for more than 25 years and the roots of my family are all from the area. Fargo/Moorhead floods virtually every year, just how much almost completely depends upon the snow accumulation at the time of the spring melt and the rate of that melt, and has almost NOTHING to do with the ANNUAL snowfall. The Red River is rare in the Northern Hemisphere as it flows from South to North. Although parts of North Dakota had record snowfall this year, Fargo area did not, not even close. Instead, areas to the south and East had record or near record snowfall, and when melted, naturally flows into the Red River which in turn flows Northbound through Fargo. This same thing happened to Grand Forks (to the North of Fargo) in 1997 and almost completely decimated the city (along with many many small surrounding towns).
I have been watching this very closely over the past several days and in constant contact with friends and family that live there. There are several pieces of misinformation floating about in the MSM about this particular flood. Some of those things pertain to “record flooding”, which is misinformation because of the lack of clarification.
Yes, this is the highest crest for the Red River ever recorded, however, this is by no means the worst flood, those are two separate topics. Hopefully, with a little break in the weather (it has cooled a lot) and a bit of luck and hard work, this will not become the worst flood in the City’s history.
Part of the misinformation pertains to the past recorded crest record which has been stated in the MSM as 1897, which is also incorrect. The flood of 1997, which WAS, and to date IS the worst flood not only in North Dakota history, but in U.S. history, actually set the crest record for the Red River at that time. The reason why 1897 was not a record is because the placement and method of measuring the river level at that time (and up to around 1952) was done completely differently and is difficult to correlate to the current measurement method. In 1997 this topic was in all of the local media, and I can remember watching a local news special about the flood where a guy from NOAA or National Weather Service extension office (I forget which now), showed why there was a difference in measurement. Additionally, they estimated that the prior measurement in 1897 would have equal to about 34-35 feet instead of the 37 foot measurement recorded, thus making 1897 only the record up until 1997. I believe the 1897 measurement recording has not been altered to reflect this however, so is still being erroneously cited as being the old record (in the MSM, not locally).
About the snowfall. At the time that the North Dakota snow melt began this year, Fargo only had a 60 inch snow accumulation, which by historical measure is not all that significant for Fargo. Consider for example in 1997, the total snow accumulation at the beginning of the spring snow melt was 139 inches, more than twice as much as this year! That water is not coming from the snow accumulation in Fargo, but rather from South and East of Fargo where record or close to record snowfall did occur this year. Which, brings me to the final point…
Why was 1997 a worse flood? Because it was a worse flood for the area as a whole, not just Fargo, but the entire area. This was a direct result of the 139 inches of accumulated snow that I just mentioned. There was so much snow and the spring thaw happened so fast (super El Nino) that it caused unprecedented overland flooding that not only inundated the Red River, but turned hundreds and hundreds of square miles of farm land into a virtual lake (largest flood ever in US).
Now, being a former resident of the area and having family and friends there, I by no means mean to trivialize this event at all, as it is extremely significant and if they don’t have some good luck and fortune in the coming days, could end up being one of the worst City floods in Fargo’s history. But, I like to point these things out because it distresses me that the MSM like to sensationalize and focus on the wrong things. Look, this flood is certainly bad enough without having to try to spice it up for news worthiness. People are working hard there and getting tired. People are and will have to suffer through this event and they need everyone’s support. I have lived through several similar events in that area and they are not easy to get through. It takes a lot of effort and is exhausting and in a lot of cases heart wrenching. Information needs to be accurate instead of the “shock and awe” to sell the news. Isn’t is “shock and awe” enough already without the embellishments?
Oh, and to comment about the AGW factor .. The facts are that Fargo and the entire Red River Valley is the lake bed of the ancient Lake Agassiz, which was one of the largest inland bodies of fresh water on the planet. More than 750mi. long and 250mi. wide. That whole area used to be a lake only 14,000 years ago! We used to have a joke about how we thought mother nature had decided to revert the area back to a lake again, and perhaps she is…
The Red River Valley has flooded many times in the past, and it will continue to do so well into the foreseeable future. Its just what it does …
Roger Knights wrote: “But it’s great for the whales, so maybe when the threat of CAGW is debunked, greenies will embrace this fertilization technique.”
No the REAL problem for the whales today is not lack of phytoplankton. The real problem is their being fished to near extinction by our own species.
The staggering Chinese demand for the usesless concoction of Sharkfin Soup is doing the same to the world’s shark populations (hence my screen name here).
The staggering overfishing of the aforementioned apex predators, the sharks, the kings and queens of the oceans, who have survived FIVE mass-extinctions and have been around for 450 million years, such overfishing has led to a current cascade effect of other less desirable species in the ocean’s foodweb, including jellyfish explosions and cownose ray infestations.
THE REAL PROBLEM vexing the oceans today is the STRIP-MINING of important biology that help balance the ocean’s health.
THAT is where the focus to correct should be aimed…NOT at some unproven “iron fertilization” means to coax more phytoplankton growth.
But the OCEANS…the life support system of the planets, the vast majority stretches of Earth that shape EVERYTHING we do on land…are one of the MAIN current casualties (and a major victim thrown under the bus) thanks to all of the misdirected, EMO, pseudo-scientific tizzy of the new world religion, namely The Worldwide Church of the Anthropogenic Warming.
But I don’t give a **** on what Al Gore has to say about our precious CO2.
Fixing our terrestrial problems are predicated on fixing our oceans!!
And for everyone who likes to take pot-shots at the former Bush Administration (myself included)…one of the best things he or any president EVER (has done for the oceans) was the creation of HUGE oceanic national parks (one of them stretching NW through the long Hawaiian Archipelago).
CHECK OUY THIS BIT OF INFO:
“The oceans, like outer space, is filled with many mysteries. The US government spends 4,000 times more to study outer space than it does to study the oceans. There is no food in outer space but the world takes over $80 million in food from the ocean annually.”
Read this entire link that has this quote here:
http://www.historyoftheuniverse.com/ocean.html
It is BAFFLING that more airtime is not given to this.
But perhaps the previous poster was right….”iron fertilization” is an offset from the lobbyists for the Japanese and Norwegian whaling industry….
Or an offset from the lobbyists for the ONE BILLION DOLLAR Chinese/Taiwanese Sharkfin Industry…
Or an offset from the lobbyists for American companies like OMEGA PROTEIN….who STRIP-MINE the oceans of VITAL lower-rank foodchain species such as Menhaden…..just because they can and just because it is cheap.
Or all three of the above….or including others.
Whatever the case, the oceans precede us.
They DEFINE us.
We have NO business ignoring them at the expense of protecting our precious CO2.
Our approach is more than a little….as we say in the south: “BASS ACKWARDS”.
Our approach is an egregious example of reactive vs. proactive in action!
WHEN ARE THE SMART PEOPLE THAT REALLY GET WHAT IS GOING ON, GOING TO BE IN PLACE TO ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING???
Hopefully by that time it will not be too late for our species.
But hell…if it is…then we deserve what is coming to us.
I still hope for the best! Save the oceans. Save the ******* sharks. Save the Earth.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, U.S.A. [such as it is]
“why does the AGW scam have such devoted support among the rich and famous, and the big corporates such as General Electric, who have such a big stake in wind and solar, etc?””
The cracks are already appearing in “big corporate” support for that agenda.
“The bottom of the ocean is relentlessly oxidising. That is why deep sea muds are red. ”
Then how is limestone formed? I thought it was formed in deep seas, while red shales were formed in shallow seas.
Correction: The Worldwide Church of the Anthropogenic GLOBAL Warming.
Also, the touted capacity of wind power has been greatly overstated both in small capacity and in large scale operations.
We are being lied to. We are being hoodwinked. People who want to do something to help, to make a small sacrifice to make a better world are being led down the garden path to their own unemployment.
Who is the UN? It is mainly small countries run by dictators. This is a coordinated grab of our cash to siphon of to them. Now why do you supposed fat cat politicians and big business might go along? Because kickbacks and bribery are a cultural norm in those places. They stand to enrich themselves in exchange for moving business to places like that.
Eyeballing…Looks like both NH and SH ice extent is either normal or above re 1979 levels (so yes, Will was right), certainly not below. Of course the 0 line is not significant in any case being based on only 30 yrs data…
sorry link here http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/index.new.html
“The US government spends 4,000 times more to study outer space than it does to study the oceans. ”
Yup. We know more about the daily surface temperature of Mars than we know about the daily surface temperatures on Earth’s abyssal plains.
Michael D Smith (17:15:56)
This is what I remember from my Exxon training circa 1983. I haven’t seen any publicly available data on it but all the oceanographers would be aware of the partial pressure of oxygen through the water column. You can only preserve carbon in an anoxic environment. Thus a closed basin like the Black Sea would be a far better candidate than the open ocean.
A few comments here have blamed greenies for this iron-spreading, but I think that’s an inaccurate criticism. Fertilizing the oceans is an adaptation strategy (coping with the effects of warming) rather than a mitigation strategy (reducing CO2). Most greenies, especially the extremists, and especially until recently, were pretty scornful of adaptation strategies in general, and iron-seeding in particular.
Cathy, I’m with you! I’m turning on ALL of my lights, TV’s, radios, anything that I can find a switch for. I even brought out some of the Xmas lights again! Considering even starting the lawnmower to watch it run. I refuse to be a stooge and slave for such BS (bad science) propaganda!
“The staggering Chinese demand for the usesless concoction of Sharkfin Soup is doing the same to the world’s shark populations (hence my screen name here).”
But the science is settled. The debate is over. Consensus of all Chinese medical authorities is that sharkfin soup is very effective medicine, make your fin stand up very straight.
So how does one get the crosspatches, the George E. Smiths, the Pamela Grays, the Lief Svalgaards, the Geoff Sharps, the Robert Batemans, the Vuks, the tallblokes, the Smokeys. Squidlys, Anna Vs and every other smart person on here…..(lets not leave out our gracious host, Anthony).. to moblise here…..WHAT IS THE NEXT STEP??
We need a new corporation that consists of the greatest scientiific minds on Earth….to stand up against this ******** and help make it right.
The time is now.
I have a corporation in mind. (Have already incorporated it). Would any of you be interested? Please email me at sharkhearted@gmail.com
Chris
Norfolk, VA
Molon Labe (18:57:27) :
“The bottom of the ocean is relentlessly oxidising. That is why deep sea muds are red. ”
Then how is limestone formed? I thought it was formed in deep seas, while red shales were formed in shallow seas.
Although the original statement in generally true
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_minimum_zone )
it is still a generalization & there are local important exceptions to the rule – also partially described in the wiki link.
Limestones can be formed both shallow water & deep water environments. The Jurassic Twin Creek, which I believe you might be familiar with, was deposited in a shallow water environment. Understanding the paleo-environment is often key to successful O&G exploration. Redbeds in the geological record are more commonly associated with sub-aerial to marginal marine deposits, such as the Jurassic Arapien