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Published online 9 January 2009 |
Nature
| doi:10.1038/news.2009.13
Updated online: 15 January 2009
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Ocean fertilization experiment draws fire
Indo-German research cruise sets sail despite criticism.
A German research ship laden with 20 tonnes of iron sulphate has whipped up a storm of protest as it sails towards the Antarctic, where it intends to dump its cargo into the ocean.
Scientists on the Polarstern, which set sail from Cape Town in South Africa on 7 January, plan an ocean fertilization experiment that some argue will violate international law.
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The experiment might be interesting in some aspects. However it appears that the long term aim is to make CO2 increase in the future as low as possible. This is to me both academic and counterproductive for the following reasons: Global warming is largely independent of CO2 at current levels of CO2 (partly saturated). Global warming has been non existent since 2002 and the current trend appear to suggest we are entering a cooling period. Increased levels of CO2 is a great help in forestation and agriculture productivity feeding an ever increasing world population. If the dumping in question and it's research result could be helpful to fish population or other things - great, but please do this for the right reasons. Carl Friis-Hansen
"Global warming has been non existent since 2002 and the current trend appear to suggest we are entering a cooling period." Really? Non-existent? So, we're concerned about polar bears physically losing arctic habitat, having ice-free arctic sailing routes for the first time in recorded history, and shedding Antarctic ice shelves at an alarming rate due to what, precisely? Miniature giant space hamsters consuming oversized slushies? I never cease to be amazed and dismayed at the level of denial concerning global warming despite a couple of decades of mounting evidence and widely-held agreement that it's happening by scientists around the world.
Someone's making a mountain out of a molehill; I'm skeptical of iron fertilisation as a solution to probable global warming, but testing it on a small scale isn't something to get excited about. Useful data might be produced and I'm looking forward to seeing what the results are.
To me, the whole idea of carbon-trading appears to be a tretrograde step and smacking of capitalist overtones. What is required is concerted efforts to move to a carbon-neutral energy scenario. Carbon sequestration is fine, but it should not be our objective to sell the saved carbon credits to those who can afford to pay and pollute. I support scientific research on C-sequestration from this point of view.
carbon seqestration reducing global warming is giving a new breath to our palnet. while having a positive effect on the one side it also have negative effects in terms of the devasting effect on the marine diversity in the southern ocean, where ecological relationships are very delicate.Even if the experiments prooved to be success , It is possible that this type of carbon sequestration experiments will skid away from scientific point of view. If not it's an excellent idea.
For such iron fertilization experiments to succeed the carbon produced needs to be sequestered for a long time by being deposited in deep ocean sediments. Only those algae that have calcium carbonate skeletons (e.g. coccolithophores) can do this job. The polar regions are where diatoms thrive but these algae are like radiolarians; they make siliceous skeletons. Their skeletons will sink to the bottom after their organic carbon is recycled but unlike CaCO3 skeletons, they carry no "CO2" with them, only silica. Such experiments are a faulty idea... unless they can be done where coccoliths are demonstrated to be the primary producers.
I agree that ocean iron fertilization and carbon sequestration is only a mean to buy us time on our way to a carbon-neutral energy scenario. Of course, it's only fighting the symptoms. However, I'd rather that a scientific crew is conducting small-scale experiments on this matter - as is the case now - than a group of entrepreneurs scenting profit and setting sail to large-scale fertilizations without considering the effects. I would assume that the local effects of the current cruise are minor. They are choosing an eddy for a reason.
Unfortunately the comment of Kenneth Towe (above), while well-intended, is 100% incorrect. A fertilization strategy to encourage the formation and burial of coccolothiphores with their carbonate shells will tend to increase the partial pressure of dissolved CO2 in seawater and, in effect, pump CO2 from the ocean into the atmosphere. I don't think this is what we want at all...... carbonate chemistry is a little counter-intuitve...
Adding 20 tonnes of Iron Sulfate to the Pristine Ocean without any public consent and UN approval does not seem fair. It may affect ecosystem in a way that is beyond simple numeric simulations. It is going to change pH and chemical composition of water from oxygen poor to oxygen rich system thereby disrupting the ecosystem. We have not done our basic home work to document and preserve species existing in that particular ecosystem. As technology driven giants on earth we should not deprive the right of existence from other species.