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.
Download file (Pdf 1.3Mb)
Images available on request
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).
“…ocean fertilization to affect climate have a low chance of success”
That’s a pity. I had high hopes for ocean fertilisation since reading that now-not-so-confident claim that went, “Give me half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you an ice age.”
Not that it was ever possible to carry iron compounds in tankers. One needs a bulk carrier for that type of job.
I love this phrase = “Hack the Planet”!! Check out the safety card:
http://hacktheplanetbook.com/safetycard/
There is actually a variation of this ocean fertilization idea which may work better. That would be to create an artificial upwellings in the tropics. A wind powered turbine pump could easily pull cold phosphate and nitrate rich water from below 8,000 feet or so and release it at the oceans suface. Photosynthesis would take it from there. Perhaps I could sell carbon credits to fund the project, as long as I can claim exclusive rights to the fishery that would develop in it’s vicinity.
Help me understand something.
“Acid rain” was the result of Sulphur dioxide (SO2) changing the Ph levels of rainwater.
Can CO2 also change the Ph levels of rainwater?
And, since we’ve had such a spell of record rain and snow, is this scrubbing the air?
DirkH says:
February 2, 2011 at 12:37 pm
“Douglas says:
February 2, 2011 at 10:37 am
DirkH says: February 2, 2011 at 9:13 am
I think i’ll start a book series[—].
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DirkH. Of course you know who the policymakers are don’t you. They are the half-witted w–kers […]”
🙂 – of course i do.[–. (Hey – if i trademark it they’ll have to pay me after each “working report”!)]
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Well its good to see that you have got your priorities sorted DirkH – might be better to have the payments made before the’working report’ though – can’t trust these people – plagiarists all!
Cheers
Douglas
henrythethird says:
February 2, 2011 at 4:34 pm
Help me understand something.
________________________________
CO2 + H2O -> H2CO3 (carbonic acid)
Drops pH of distilled water to around 5.5.
The presence of alkalinity as bicarbonate or sulfate buffers the acid (neutralizes it), and keeps the pH higher. Oceans have lots of alkalinity. Furthermore, the system is not static; living creatures modify their surroundings. That means living things influence and modify, or regulate, ocean chemistry. Some CO2 drops out (falls to the bottom of the ocean) as CaCO3, very roughly around 100 billion tons per year.
We know so little about birth rate and migration life cycles in the ocean. It was decades long salmon migration patterns that led us to discover the PDO. These cycles appear to be tied to long term drought/dust cycles that send iron into the ocean. When we start messing with natural air born iron fertilization cycles, we are messing with birth rate cycles that took thousands of years to establish.
Here’s a peek at insect cycles:
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/walker/ufbir/chapters/chapter_12.shtml
If the report is, as reported, a series of we-don’t-knows, then the conclusion that there’s little chance of success is not justified. For example, if “it is unclear whether findings from small-scale experiments apply fully to larger scales” then it may or may not scale up, we just don’t know.
But I do know that good scientists should spend their time doing experiments to answer such questions rather than writing propaganda.
The posts by hunter (February 2, 2011 at 5:48 am) and Steve R (February 2, 2011 at 3:19 pm) reminded me of Arthur C. Clarke’s 1957 novel The Deep Range. In Clarke’s future world, much of humanity is fed by ocean farming of fish, whales (meat and milk), and algae/plankton. The author fertilizes much of the ocean with artificial upwellings of nutrients from the ocean floor (and presumably with processed human waste products, too).
Compared with today’s gloom and doom stories, it was quite an optimistic novel.