Remember this story? Ocean iron fertilization CO2 sequestration experiment a blooming failure. Well it seems there is more bad news. A new summary for policymakers suggests the whole idea of ocean fertilization has a “low chance of success”.
From the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme via Eurekalert, another far fetched climate related scheme shot to hell.
Ocean Fertilization: summary for policymakers
Geoengineering schemes involving ocean fertilization to affect climate have a low chance of success, according to the first summary for policymakers on the issue.
Failure to tackle rising greenhouse gas emissions effectively has led to intensifying debate on geoengineering – deliberate large-scale schemes to slow the rate at which Earth is heating up. The public debate often mixes opinion with fact so scientists have now released the first summary for policymakers on ocean fertilization, one of the earliest geoengineering proposals. The authors report that the chances of success of using ocean fertilization to deal with climate change is low.
Ocean fertilization involves adding iron or other nutrients to the surface of the ocean to trigger growth of microscopic marine plants. These plants use dissolved carbon dioxide to grow, which led to the idea that deliberate fertilization of the ocean on a large scale would remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Lead author of the report Professor Doug Wallace from the Leibniz-Institut für Meereswissenschaften (IFM-GEOMAR) says: “The published findings suggest that even very large-scale fertilization would remove only modest amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over 100 years”.
For two decades, marine scientists have been carrying out a series of small-scale fertilization experiments to understand how ocean ecosystems respond to environmental change. However the experiments were not designed to address issues relating to geoengineering. Proposals to scale up this approach to slow climate warming or be included within emissions trading schemes to generate carbon credits have stimulated intense debate and criticism amongst scientists and the public.
The new summary, involving independent scientists from seven countries, explains the complexity of the underlying science and brings the detailed findings together in an accessible form for policymakers.
The summary notes that there are still major knowledge gaps. For example, it is unclear whether findings from small-scale experiments apply fully to larger scales. And a major concern is the possibility of large-scale fertilization having unintended consequences for ecosystems. The summary points out the extreme difficulty of assessing long-term effectiveness or unintended side effects.
“It’s vastly more complex than assessing carbon storage in a forest” says Wallace “the carbon, and many of the potential impacts, are largely invisible and likely to be spread over vast distances”.
Publication of the summary coincides with a symposium in California (La Jolla) on the ecosystem impacts of proposed geoengineering schemes and organized by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme. The one-day symposium, streamed live online, will bring together the world’s leading experts in this area of research.
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NOTES: Ocean fertilization: a summary for policy makers
Published by: Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), which is part of UNESCO. Document prepared with the assistance of the Surface Ocean Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS), an international programme that focuses research effort on air-sea interactions and processes, sponsored by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the International Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution (ICACGP).
The summary for policymakers is available here:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0019/001906/190674e.pdf
PUBLICATION CREDIT:
D.W.R. Wallace, C.S. Law, P.W. Boyd, Y. Collos,
P. Croot, K. Denman, P. Lam, U. Riebesell, S. Takeda &
P. Williamson; Ocean Fertilization. A Scientific Summary for Policy
Makers. IOC/UNESCO, Paris 2010. IOC Brochure 2010-2
Authors: Doug Wallace (IFM-GEOMAR, Germany), Cliff Law (NIWA, New Zealand), Philip Boyd (University of Otago, New Zealand), Yves Collos (CNRS Université Montpellier, France), Peter Croot (PML, UK), Ken Denman (Fisheries & Oceans, Canada), Phoebe Lam (WHOI, USA), Ulf Riebesell (IFM-GEOMAR,
Germany), Shigenobu Takeda (Nagasaki University, Japan) and Phil
Williamson (NERC, UK).
“The summary notes that there are still major knowledge gaps……..The summary points out the extreme difficulty of assessing long-term effectiveness or unintended side effects.”
the gap between reality and fable is one of them
Rising atmospheric CO2 levels were due to outgassing of oceanic water as it warmed. Now waters are cooling the CO2 levels should start to fall as it is readsorbed. Human produced CO2 is but 3% of the overall annual CO2 produced (according to the US Dept of Energy) so we can ignore this as a significant addition to the natural producers.
Let the oceans do their own thing. Oceans have been reservoirs for CO2, O2, N2 for millions of years. There is nothing we can do to improve these natural cycles and processes.
This is similar to what happened when a volcano erupted in Alaska in 2008. A storm picked up the iron rich ash and dumped it into the ocean. Enormous plankton bloom, but even this massive scale event had little impact.
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2010/10/geo-engineering-more-about-bad-ideas-to-save-the-earth/
What happened to the Precautionary Principle anyway? Oh, I see. It goes out the window when the meddling is done by The Correct People. It’s only The Incorrect People who are forbidden to mess with Nature by planting crops, mining, cutting trees, or breathing.
The plankton are already having trouble adapting to the earth’s weakening magnetic field, which is getting ready for a pole-switch. Let’s not throw another wrench into their system.
I should think that dumping large quantities of anything into the oceans flies in the face of common sense. Why do some people insist on trying to fix something before they are even sure if it is broken?
I am sorry, but how is this bad news? If this prevents a massive and expensive vandalisation of the oceans floor, then this has to be a good thing.
We should be cleaning up the oceans, not spending billions of dollars trying to alter them further in the vein hope of tackling a far from certain problem which might not even happen.
The effects of large-scale geo-engineering and climate-engineering projects could be far far worse than the problem that they are trying to solve.
…but will we stop wasting our money on it? I suspect not.
this work should tell us what the mineralization rate at which CO2 is removed from the aqueous biosphere. The loss of carbon, on the ocean floor, is a sink in the whole carbon cycle. Carbon lost to the biosphere by this mechanism has to be replaced, either by vulcanos or from weathering of carbonaceous rocks.
In the long term these influxes and effluxes should match, but there is no reason for then to match in the short, 1,000 year, term.
Carbonates in the oceans are the buffering system for the carbon cycle.
The argument for fertilization should have always focused on what it can do to improve fishery productivity.
Large fishing companies should be encouraged to ‘lease’ fishing rights to oceans, and be required to maintain them like farmers as part of the ‘lease’.
Improved fishery health would include taking steps to improve yields in a sustainable way over time. This would mean fertilization, harvest management, etc. The CO2 impact would be significant, but is not the central reason to do it. CO2 should never be the sole reason to do anything.
Think of how the US great plains went from being the ‘The great American Desert’ to the breadbasket of the world as a go-by example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Desert
Once again climate science, by its obsession on CO2, is reducing the level of intelligence by limiting thinking about how to solve real problems. The opportunity costs of the global warming mania is starting to add up.
If it weren’t for premise that it was needed to combat climate change, dumping iron into the ocean would be taken to task for what it is – pollution.
Thank you very much but no, the ocean and atmospheric CO2 self regulating system functions quite well and Ill not have silly fearmongers fiddling with it.
Could this thoughtful response to a climate control suggestion be related to the lack of thought preceding “Let’s use whirligigs! Yeh! That will work!” climate control suggestion? Maybe AGW’s main contribution to the world will be to remind us what happens when we fail to think before we act.
agree with hunter. putting minerals back into the oceans is reasonable irrespective of carbon uptake. we have too long reaped where we have not sown… or fertilized.
Any CO² entrapment scheme has minimal probability of making a significant impact on the glogal climate, because CO² doesn’t drive the climate and its IR absorption effect is already pretty much saturated.
Could this be industrialised to produce animal feed? I’m thinking along the lines of man-made salt water lagoons which get fertilised with iron oxide, an algal bloom occurs and zooplankton population soars. Then filter out most of the zooplankton and mash them into some kind of meal.
The ability to improve fish stocks is a good one even if the geo-engineering they wanted hasn’t turned out to be workable. I used to think the fishing industry ought to be roaming the oceans in disused tankers breeding fish fry and releasing them to conserve the fish population but this method would be more practical.
Ocean fertilization involves adding iron or other nutrients to the surface of the ocean to trigger growth of microscopic marine plants.
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I grew up being told that’s eutrophication…….
….and we should spend billions stopping it
As synthetic biology gets rolling with practical applications we’re going to be needing all the atmospheric CO2 we can get because carbon is a basic building block for both fuels and durable materials. The atmosphere is the carbon supply source for synthetic organisms. Here’s one of the first that’s getting close to commercial application:
http://www.jouleunlimited.com/
It just takes a few minutes at this website to get a good handle on the technology. This is just the beginning. In the next decade we’ll have a labor force of engineered bacteria building all kinds of things out of carbon and carbon compounds with molecular precision. The possibilities are mind boggling. The sun provides all the needed energy and is virtually unlimited but atmospheric CO2 is not in such great supply and it’ll be used up – sequestered for a very long time – in the construction of durable goods. I believe in 25 years cap & trade will be turned on its head where instead of trying to limit how much CO2 is released into the atmosphere the limitation will be how much CO2 is removed from the atmosphere.
One study says it wont work. Well then, better abandon the whole idea.
This probably also ‘proves’ that there isnt any negative, CO2 feedback mechanism from warmer temps and CO2 fertilization, either.
Better put this new info into the models ASAP, and get on with that draconian carbon tax, seeing as how it is our only hope.
Quickest way to destroy the planet (or at least degrade our ability to live on it) is to attempt massive ‘terra forming’ without actually knowing what will happen when we do.
“world’s leading experts” which in this case is a bunch of amatuers who don’t have a clue …
Yeah, the introduction of cane toads in Australia worked well to kill the sugar cane beetle.
/sarc off
Puts one in mind of the nursery rhyme …
There was an old lady
Who swallowed a fly ……….
Think of Earth as the old lady and it all fits!
Met Office reply to:
“Please supply copies of all communications between the Met Office
and government departments since 1st August 2010 that refer to
long-range forecasts covering this winter’s weather.”
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/this_winters_weather_forecast_go
“Think of how the US great plains went from being the ‘The great American Desert’ to the breadbasket of the world as a go-by example.”
Gasp! Save lives!!! With oceans making up 3/4ths of the world surface you are talking about dramatically increasing the world’s carrying capacity! Can’t have that. . . .natural starvation undone! Let em eat cake instead!
Item 8 on the diagram: from 1 to 15% of the carbon reaches the bottom. Well, we knew it was somewhere between 0 and 100.
The results if it was 1% and if it was 15% would be markedly different.
In the North Sea there is an algal bloom every spring as lengthening days enable phytoplankton to make use of the nutrients over winter. Whether higher dissolved CO2 will have an effect on this, don’t know. It depends on limiting nutrients – whether CO2 is ever limiting (or if it is phosphorus, iron, etc).
“nutrients accumulated over winter…” I mean