From a University of Leeds Press Release
Acidic clouds nourish world’s oceans
Published Friday 2nd October 09
Acidic clouds are feeding bioavailable iron to the oceans – a discovery which sheds light on the natural processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Scientists at the University of Leeds have proved that acid in the atmosphere breaks down large particles of iron found in dust into small and extremely soluble iron nanoparticles, which are more readily used by plankton.
This is an important finding because lack of iron can be a limiting factor for plankton growth in the ocean – especially in the southern oceans and parts of the eastern Pacific. Addition of such iron nanoparticles would trigger increased absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
“This could be a very important discovery because there’s only a very small amount of soluble iron in the ocean and if plankton use the iron nanoparticles formed in clouds then the whole flux of bioavailable iron to the oceans needs to be revised,” says Dr Zongbo Shi, lead author of the research from the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds.
Water droplets in clouds generally form around dust and other particles. When clouds evaporate, as they often do naturally, the surface of the particle can become very acidic. This is especially true where the air is polluted.
Paradoxically, scientists suggest that large scale industry in countries like China could be combating global warming to some extent by creating more bioavailable iron in the oceans, and therefore increasing carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere.
“Man made pollution adds more acid to the atmosphere and therefore may encourage the formation of more iron nanoparticles,” says Dr Shi.
Scientists carried out the research by simulating clouds in the laboratory to which they added Saharan dust samples. They were then able to mimic natural conditions in order to monitor the chemical processes happening in the system. The laboratory experiments have been confirmed in natural samples where such cloud processing is known to have occurred.
The findings highlight the complexity of the pattern of natural iron delivery to the oceans, throwing new light on recent high profile plans to add iron to the southern oceans artificially to stimulate plankton growth.
“This process is happening in clouds all over the world, but there are particularly interesting consequences for the oceans. What we have uncovered is a previously unknown source of bioavailable iron that is being delivered to the Earth’s surface in precipitation,” says Professor Michael Krom, the principal investigator of the research, also at the University of Leeds.
The research was published in the September issue of Environmental Science and Technology and funded by the Natural Environment Research Council.
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greenland ice is collapsing LOL
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.5.html
Who Agrees with me Man-Made global warming and Man-Made climate change are a myth?
Wait… real science where they did a real lab experiment? Without computer models?
Robert Wood (15:48:29) :
Hold on a moment. Is this good or bad?
It just is.
I’ve long felt there’s a natural balance/reaction for everything, including whatever we do…
Ah, the poor AGW proponents….. Natural systems are so buggy when trying to run a convenient hypothesis of everything:-)
I think this is what is called a Sea Change. All good climate news all the time, instead of the constant depressing disaster stuff.
It would be ironic, and drive the AGWers crazy, if acid rain combined with particulate pollution (smoke, soot, etc) were neutralizing through ocean absorption, CO2 emissions.
It would mean the most effective way of mitigating greenhouse gas warming would be to cancel all the clean air acts and similar.
Which would be doubly ironic, because the supposed warming since 1970 is largely an artifact of those clean air acts reducing particulate pollution and increasing minimum temperatures due to increased early morning sunshine reaching the surface.
Let’s assume this might be bad news. Naughty humans are causing more plankton.
OK, some whales who prefer plankton to a nice boef bourgignon might be pleased. Fair enough, each whale to his own is what I say. But what about the swathes of plankton the whales don’t gobble-up? What will happen to them? What effect will they have on the perfectly balanced and unchanging natural world that existed before Adam rubbed two sticks together and warned Eve about the effect of second-hand smoke on a delicately-placed fig leaf?
The answer, of course, is that we haven’t the faintest idea what an increase in plankton will mean. Most likely, I’d guess, is that it will mean nothing more than an increase in plankton. And that is where this study is so interesting.
No one can say what causative effect it will have, if any, because there is nothing against which it can be measured. Rather like increases in atmospheric CO2, some might say.
The relative contribution of polluting particles versus the normal VAST quanties of plain ol’ dirt particles has not been determined. My response to this article? Meh. I already knew about dust being fish food. Drought cycles occur about every 30 to 60 years in large enough quantities to replenish fish populations as measured by fish tonnage at port. The PDO was discovered in just such a cycle of fish tonnage records.
Histograd (15:52:14) :
No it is not beyond you. You just find all this BS hard to believe. You are right. It is not believable. Therefore, it is beyond you. Actually, it is beyond belief that these “scientists” can persist with this BS in the face of all evidence.
rbateman (16:58:54) to Tom in Florida (16:11:52) :
“If you are thinking someone is out to ‘experiment’ with the oceans by introducing lots of iron seeding to make more plankton, the unintended consequence might be this red tide algae. Toxic.”
Actually I wasn’t, just stating that Sahara dust carried by winds can reach the Gulf of Mexico, especially with large storms that have their beginnings off the coast of Africa and that is thought by some to increase red tide. Iron seeding is a different subject but I agree that there will always be unintended consequences whenever we try to manipulate our environment.
It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.
Hey, latest from the UN: Carbonic Acid will eat the brains of non-believers.
Brian Baumgaertel (18:13:09) :
Wait… real science where they did a real lab experiment? Without computer models?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I KNOW!!! Absolutely SCANDALOUS !!!! How dare they break from norm and actually
perform an EXPERIMENT…..and one that is repeatable and falsifiable at that…… humpff, the very idea. I nearly had a coronary when I read the words laboratory,
and experiment in the same article.
colinjelly (17:46:17),
Pumping the bilges, that have traveled the planet, into another ecosystem, can cause problems, at least here in Australia.
http://www.hsi.org.au/?catID=146
My vote for the meaning of this article would be that they are referring only to the old-school traditional pollutants, like SO2 leading to sulfuric acid (acid rain).
They aren’t referring to CO2 leading to carbonic acid; because China was mentioned, but not the USA. And CO2 isn’t yet generally classified with the old-school ‘pollutants’. Some may try, for regulatory purposes. But others think that CO2 is the greater risk.
One old story on geo-engineering iron fertilization (from several months ago) was that the experiment failed…because they simultaneously increased the population of immediate predators.
The new story (from Nature) counters the current interest in iron fertilization (partly as a way to produce carbon credits, for sale).
“Adding (geo-engineering) iron to the ocean is not an effective way to fight climate change…
“One such strategy–fertilizing the oceans with iron to stimulate phytoplankton blooms, absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and export carbon to the deep sea–should be abandoned.”
Strong et al, Nature, Sep 2009, abhstract
Our knowledge of what we dont know keeps on expanding – As we learn more about the climate, the less we realise we know!
Of course, they can use this to claim for scare mongering i.e:
Due to the development of cleaner burning technologies, reducing aerosols will now not only reduce the level of global dimming that had protected us from the full strength of dangerous warming, but now it will also increase the rate co2 acculates in the atmosphere. It’s worse than we thought!!!!
;0)
Oh beautiful.
I cannot describe the delight of driving through the red, iron oxide rich, desert rock walls to Sedona, AZ and back to Western Colorado this week in a howling 50mph wind.
It just helps put the pieces together of man as part of nature.
The winds are SCREAMING, the dust is so thick and so red/yellow/white we had to pull over many times. Several humans died in a wreck caused by the wind at Four Corners. We had to turn back and go north through Utah. The desert is littered with our important papers, like receipts, that were sucked out of the car when we cracked a door.
The rock that is being stripped, turning back to dust to nourish the oceans, is very ancient, Jurassic sandstone. It was pink upon the Colorado snows this spring, and will slowly make its way back to the oceans.
Just the experience of the winds was enough to make me see how small mans contribution could possibly be.
There is new snow all over the West Elks.
I’m pretty sure it was on this blog some time ago that there was mention of researchers fertilizing the ocean somewhere with iron sulfate to trigger a plankton bloom. The intent was to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
As I recall, they got their bloom, which was then consumed by predators of plankton, and these predators became prey, and so on, according to the great Circle of Life (cue the music), and it ended up being a big disappointment.
The production of dimethylsulfide in the ocean is said to produce a strong negative feedback for global temperatures.
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V4/N12/B2.php
This claim has been given rather little attention. There should be more attention to the good work by the Idso group as well. They have collected a lot of information about the MWP, for example.
I have personally witnessed in the past week or so, the Blog Stream Media (BSM) come of age right here before my very eyes at WUWT.
It seems, the creditability of the BSM is now an par if not more so than the MSM.
From the blogs I read I can tell you, they are so much more accurate than what comes out of the main stream media.
Breaking news:
Federal Trade Commission will try to regulate blogging for the first time, requiring writers on the Web to disclose possible conflicts of interest or face fines of up to $11,000.
To that I say: Thank God I’m a country boy.
I ain’t got affiliation with Jack.
Just your average everyday Joe Observer.
Thread music.
YES The Revealing Science Of God LIVE
Google “Ocean seeding”. This subject of iron as ocean nutrient has a fairly long history. Plankton is the base of the ocean food chain, and increasing the amount is reflected all the way up. The CO2 uptake seems to be classified as not important since the CO2 doesn’t seem to be sequestered. Others claim dire consequences such as poisoning the ocean in some way or other. One company experimented with using ocean seeding as a way to sell carbon credits, and, had they been able to demonstrate sequestration they certainly would be richer for it.
Michael (17:57:25) :
Who Agrees with me Man-Made global warming and Man-Made climate change are a myth?
Myth is too grand a term – might I suggest “Delusional Superstitions” instead.
I would certainly agree with that.