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)
savethesharks (18:53:42) wrote:
“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.”
That’s a red herring. More plankton is great for the whales, regardless of the degree to which they’re being fished.
savethesharks (18:53:42) also wrote:
“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.”
That’s a false dilemma. We don’t have to choose one or the other. There’s no reason we can’t do both. Further, iron fertilization to coax more phytoplankton growth can no longer be considered unproven.
Crosspatch wrote: 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.
The TRUTH of the ages……
Gary P (16:55:02) :
Their experiment as designed by their hypothesis was a total failure. It is not that we did not learn anything from this. We all did. But the outcome had nothing to do with the premise.
Not a RED HERRING at all, Roger Knights. More like a NON HERRING.
And this is not a ‘false dilemma” as you conclude. I agree that we need to do both.
But given the DIRE conditions of the world’s oceans….neither is this AT ALL a “red herring” or a “false dilemma” as you put it.
We need to answer the vexing questions related to big corporations and thier strip-mining the oceans just because it is is cheap and just because they can.
The burden of proof is on you to show the REAL problems that are vexing the worlds oceans and the planet as well!!
Addition: Iron fertilization may be a route. But lest we ignore the deeper causative problems of the MESS we are in today…..do not ignore other, more practical solutions.
Thanks, Dave, Jorge, others. I would love to go camping with you folks and decide around a campfire the withering nonsense of AGW, policy, and such. Right now, must sleep. Pick it up in the AM… Thanks for the discussion. Mike S.
savethesharks (21:04:08) :
I have a great idea, outlaw fishing for sharks with anything but a bowie knife. Then only real men will know what shark soup tastes like…
“The real problem is their being fished to near extinction by our own species.”
I believe the population of virtually every species of whale is increasing and has been for quite some time. Many areas of our oceans are believe to be at maximum carrying capacity for some species.
The notion that whale populations are decreasing is a legacy of the 1960’s and 1970’s that keeps being repeated without the benefit of current realty injected into the discussion.
Blue whales: The estimated rate of increase is 8.2% (95% confidence interval 3.8-12.5%) per year between 1978/79 and 2003/04
Gray whales: The population was increasing at a rate of 3.2% (95% confidence interval 2.4% – 4.3%) over the period 1967/68 – 1987/88 with an average annual catch of 174 whales.
Bowhead whales: The net rate of increase of this population since 1978 has been estimated as about 3.2% per year (95% confidence interval 1.4% – 5.1%).
Humpback whales:
Western North Atlantic – A rate of population increase of 3.1% (SE=0.005) was obtained from the Gulf of Maine for the period 1979-1993
Southern Hemisphere: Rates of increase. East Australia: 1981-96 12.4% (95%CI 10.1-14.4%). West Australia: 1977-91 10.9% (7.9-13.9%)
Northern Pacific: Rates of increase of about 7% have been reported for the eastern North Pacific, 1990-2002.
Right whales: There is evidence of increase rates of 7-8% for populations of Argentina, Australia and South Africa
Please do not repeat that nonsense about declining whale populations because it is false. Whale populations have not been in decline for decades.
Once upon a time there was a population of extremely cold-adapted people living in the far North. These people did not have bows and arrows, did not hunt caribou and lived by spearing seals and walrus as they emerged from their breathing holes in the ice. Then the climate changed. The Earth warmed and in summer, the ice melted. When they tried to approach seals and walrus on the beach, the animals would simply swim out to sea. These people also did not have boats. They were ice people. They had no means of hunting at sea and no means of hunting land animals that they could not get close enough to spear.
As the ice melted, other people better adapted to the climate (Inuit and Thule) moved into their territory. These people had bows and arrows and boats. They drove the tall ice people off their lands. The ice people starved to death. The Medieval Warm Period resulted in the extinction of a race of humans called the Dorset people that we still know very little about.
The demise of the Dorset people had nothing to do with fossil fuels but if something like that were to happen today, rest assured that some politician would make it our fault.
Ohioholic (21:16:25) said: I have a great idea, outlaw fishing for sharks with anything but a bowie knife. Then only real men will know what shark soup tastes like…
BRAVO Ohioholic. Well said.
Crosspatch wrote: “Please do not repeat that nonsense about declining whale populations because it is false. Whale populations have not been in decline for decades.”
Not nonsense bro. Neither nonsense about the declining eco-systems of our oceans.
http://www.pnas.org/content/96/6/3308.full.pdf
I HATE the politicization of science just as much as you do.
But to ignore the fact that the AGW smokescreen has thrown the real driver of our weather (the oceans) under the bus…is to commit logical suicide.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, U.S.A. [such as it is]
And the increase of the whale populations can not be ignored as being directly correlated to the international attempt to protect the same.
WHALE FISHING HAS BEEN PROHIBITED INTERNATIONALLY FOR TWENTY YEARS….WHAT THE **** DO YOU EXPECT IN THE DATA???
That is a GOOD trend….so the current attempts to enforce the same (Paul Watson on the Animal Planet channel…are just puncuations in a broader struggle.
For shame crosspatch.
I give you credit elsewhere (and many times) for a very enlightened opinion…..and this is the best that you can come up with??
Chris
Norfolk, VA
“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??”
Pay us more than we make in our day jobs. Show me the money, then we can talk about your “corporation”. Seriously. I am a capitalist.
Hansen’s mass AGW rally is snowed off. The Arctic ice is as thick as ever. The carbon rich phytoplankton ends up on the menu. One might start to believe that Madam Nature is having a little fun at the expense of our misguided warmist brothers and sisters…
NormD
” 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?”
Facts – no where on the planet are there old accumulations of biomass. It gets continually recycled into the biosphere. Given the assumed age of the sea floors, Jurassic, then there shouls be some evidence of these accumulations. Except there are none.
@ur momisugly savethesharks: Wikipedia says:
“a red herring is an argument, given in reply, that does not address the original issue. Critically, a red herring is a deliberate attempt to change the subject or divert the argument.”
The original issue was, Is more plankton great for the whales? Your response was to say that they were being slaughtered, and that that was the real issue. That’s a red herring–an evasion and a diversion from the original question.
Here’s an analogy. I say that it’s great for the Simpsons that Lisa has persuaded them to eat more greens. You respond that I’m wrong, because the REAL issue is their exposure to Mr. Burns’s nuclear emissions. You may be right, but you were not right to say I was wrong.
=======================
savethesharks also wrote:
“And this is not a ‘false dilemma” as you conclude. I agree that we need to do both.”
But that’s not what you implied in your original statement, where the two policies were presented as mutually exclusive:
“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.”
It is always a pleasure to read your page. Gentlemanly science at its best. In the end you will have more influence on events than Al Gore. Please keep your page going.
The largest source of CO2 produced by human activity is not industrial but rather…exhaled breath. Many claim it is need not be addressed because of its closed loop nature…things we eat are removing CO2 from the atmosphere. This points out another opportunity…eat less.
Squidly: “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 …” Why be so passive about the repeated destructiveness of a river onto its flood plain/former lake? Just send West the “excess” snow in the winter and the over-the-top melt in the spring. We will gladly drink the water so you and your family can live in a safe and less exhausting environment.
Louis Hissink (01:15:03) :
Facts – no where on the planet are there old accumulations of biomass. It gets continually recycled into the biosphere. Given the assumed age of the sea floors, Jurassic, then there shouls be some evidence of these accumulations. Except there are none.
From http://www.uwsp.edu/geO/faculty/ritter/glossary/l_n/limestone.html
Limestone is a sedimentary rock containing at least fifty-percent calcium carbonate. Several different types of limestone exist and are differentiated based on the texture (e.g. oolitic limestone), mineral content (e.g. dolomitic limestone), origin (e.g. coral) and geological age (Carboniferous limestone). Karst topography develops in regions underlain by limestone. Most limestone is partly or wholly
areorganic in origin and contain the hard parts or shells of mollusks and coral (fossiliferous limestone). Because limestone is mainly calcium carbonate it serves as a store for carbon that is released upon dissolution.–Mike Ramsey
David Archibald:”Seeing the effect they got for six tonnes of dissolved iron (iron chloride?), “.
It is ferrous sulphate, as far as I know. To produce it you have to use either iron scrap as raw material or magnetite ore concentrate and reduce the solution (which is in part ferric sulphate) with iron scrap to ferrous sulphate again…so, my guess is, these fools will be producing more tons of their favorite gas, along with a lot of others, than the amount they will supposedly recapture.
None of these idiots can see the beauty of nature´s simplicity, as the orbits of our Sun around the barycenter:
Round and round I go,
the barycenter longing to find and rest,
because the farthest I go
the more furious I become
The Sun
Mike (05:42:18) :
The largest source of CO2 produced by human activity is not industrial but rather…exhaled breath. Many claim it is need not be addressed because of its closed loop nature…things we eat are removing CO2 from the atmosphere. This points out another opportunity…eat less
This is a marvelous advice for their FAT LEADER
I would very much like to see scientific data re the opposing arguments of crosspatch and savethesharks regarding the bountifulness of whales and the preservation of the ocean floor, again for life’s bounty. Is the main problem overfishing or over-harvesting or is it temperature and upwellings? I have seen evidence for both sides.
The iron fertilization experiment — my first response is to send out the gunboats (whose?) to stop these idiots from messing with “our” oceans without some very careful experimentation beforehand. However, many commenters on this blog appear to believe dumping tons of stuff, stuff that someone believes is relatively benign, is no big deal, and, in actuality, might prove how to farm the oceans better.
For example, Roger Knights (19:46:25) : “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.”
On the other hand, other are cautious or incredulous.
Nasif Nahle (07:20:04) : “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.”
And see 3×2 at 7:19, 3/27. Anthony, I hope you will continue this discussion/debate with further science regarding some of the topics opened up on this thread. (By the way, I use iron phosphate to keep the snail and slug population within bounds.)
“Facts – no where on the planet are there old accumulations of biomass. It gets continually recycled into the biosphere. Given the assumed age of the sea floors, Jurassic, then there shouls be some evidence of these accumulations. Except there are none.”
Try putting Azolla Event in WikiPaedia.
That biomass is only 40 million years old and so is about half way to becoming an oilfield that will make Saudi look like a puddle. 100,000s years of our present consumption of fossil fuels would only dent the sequestered carbon there.
When the cultists stamp their foot and insist that all the biomass that grows each year rots each year so it doesn’t figure in Man’s desecration, I’m often tempted to laugh.
I wonder if anyone has attempted to guesstimate the total tonnage of organic silt the Amazon sequesters each year?
Roger Knights “The original issue was, Is more plankton great for the whales? Your response was to say that they were being slaughtered, and that that was the real issue. That’s a red herring–an evasion and a diversion from the original question.”
No the ORIGINAL issue was the topic at hand on this thread about “iron fertilization” and I was making the point that we would not have such dire problems in the oceans if our species had not decimated its supply in the first place.
Taking time to point out the root causation of the ocean’s health is in no way, shape, or form a red herring…and neither was i trying to divert the argument here as you say.
Why don’t you ask me some DIRECT questions if you don’t like what I say and I can promise you bro you will get some DIRECT answers!
Back to topic: As my screen name here implies…another dire problem in the oceans is the worldwide decimation of the sharks thanks to some commercial fishing techniques but mostly thanks to the black-market-driven Chinese shark-fin industry.
You all know what happens. The shark is hauled aboard, fins are sliced off, then the shark is thrown back in the water without the ability to swim and slowly dies.
In the northwest Atlantic alone, some large predatory shark species have been virtually wiped out:
From http://cmbc.ucsd.edu/People/Faculty_and_Researchers/baum/Baum_etal_2003_Science.pdf
“Excessive fishing has caused a 90% decline in shark populations across the world’s oceans and up to 99% along the US east coast, which are some of the best-managed waters in the world,” according to Baum.
“The decline in predators such as sharks can have devastating consequences for the local marine ecology.In a case study published last year, Baum found that a major decline in the numbers of predatory sharks in the north Atlantic after 2000 had allowed populations of the sharks’ prey, cownose rays, to explode. The rays in turn decimated the bay scallop populations around North Carolina. “There was a fishery for bay scallops in North Carolina that lasted over a century uninterrupted and it was closed down in 2004 because of cownose rays.”
And SO….until we tackle the problems in the ocean that we HAVE caused, it really does not make alot of sense to introduce another variable in the oceans such as “iron fertilization” that has the potential to exacerbate the cascade of problems that already exist in the ocean. Look at the simple illustration at the head of this topic: iron fertilization could cause even greater harm.
Why not fix the fixable problems first??
No doubt the iron fertilization idea is used as a diversion and an offset by the whaling, commercial fishing and sharkfishing lobbies so they can continue to strip-mine the oceans.
And not to mention its a diversion for the AGW crowd to be sure. How about a new acronymn to describe the state of the oceans “Anthropogenic Oceanic Biology Catastrophe” or AOBC.
It is unfortunate that the the rickety tie-dyed, exhaust-belching VW bus of AGW contines to careen down the scientific freeway at 100 miles per hour, sweeping REAL and solvable issues under it along the way!!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, U.S.A. [such as we are]