Monday, March 07, 2011

Ocean fertilization won't work

"Give me a half tanker of iron and I will give you an ice age." Thus spake John Martin, famously and wrongly.

He thought, correctly, that iron can stimulate ocean plants. But he thought, wrongly, that this would make the ocean suck up CO2 and blunt global warming.

This was an idea with teeth, according to a NASA biography, because it took an oceanographic hypothesis and turned it into a techno-fix for a big social problem.

Now a new report for policy makers finds that the oceanographic hypothesis has merit, iron can fertilize ocean plankton. But the geo-engineering hope was wrong, this process can't capture enough CO2 to make a difference. From the report:
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".
Too bad, it would be nice to have a solution in hand, even though ocean ecosystems would be put at risk. Then, at least, we could do something if we all start to Sizzle.

I knew John Martin, and it was interesting to watch this debate unfold over the last few decades. I suspect he's smiling at this news. His comment spurred a great adventure in oceanography, something he would be pleased to see.

1 comment:

JohnnyScallops said...

It is similar to how some people are claiming that increasing bivalves and macroalgae can mitigate nutrient addition. While they would both benefit from nutrients, they are unlikely to make any real dent on the scales of eutrophied embayments.

I saw Jeff Levinton give a seminar on the above, and he made an interesting point - he remembers a cartoon from his childhood, with kids mopping up water from a flowing faucet. The moral - why mop it up when you can turn off the water? It applies to nutrient overloading, and to CO2 as well. We can't just keep trying to "bury" CO2 on a constant basis. The only fix is to try to curb emissions.