Debating Use of Iron As Curb Of Climate
The test was conducted southwest of the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean, which is a fairly barren area biologically. Over a region of 28 square miles, a team of scientists slowly poured into the sea 990 pounds of iron, which is thought to be a limiting nutrient in such unproductive regions.
Almost immediately, the waters bloomed with the tiny plants known as phytoplankton, and did so over more than 200 square miles, turning the sea from blue to green.
No scientist has criticized the experiment publicly, but experts are at war over whether the test simply sheds new light on marine ecology or points to an important way to battle the effects of global warming.
Dr. Adam Heller, a chemical engineer at the University of Texas at Austin who has promoted the fertilization idea in Washington, hailed the explosive rise in ocean productivity as "very significant, terribly significant." Dr. Heller said in an interview: "We now have some way to cope with global warming should it become a problem. I wish we had more ways."
But detractors of such global engineering say its prospect offers a false hope that threatens to encourage polluters and undercut international accords meant to curb emissions of carbon dioxide, which is released into the atmosphere by the burning of gas, oil, coal and wood and is considered a main culprit in global warming.
This statement above is the most ridiculous staement I have ever heard. Let's not try to prevent global warming, and all the hardships it will bring, by helping the ocean raise its phytoplankton levels because it will encourage people to keep polluting!
My god, how ridiculous is THAT statement!!!!!
"As a scientific experiment, these results are fascinating," said Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, a private group in New York. "But as a potential solution to global warming, they have limited if any value, as far as our current understanding goes." Fierce side debates are also developing over the cost of a program — iron is cheap but megatons would be needed — as well as its possible benefit of stepping up the sea's productivity and enhancing fish harvests.
Both opponents and friends of sea fertilization tend to agree that at best, its widespread use would probably cut atmospheric carbon dioxide by 6 percent to 21 percent, not enough to end the problem but potentially sufficient to dent it.
This is what the article says about a second test that was done.
The experiment was redone in May and June 1995 by 37 scientists from the United States, England and Mexico, only this time the iron was dispersed in three infusions over a week to insure a more sustained release into the sea's surface. The test was financed by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research.
The fertilized patch lay some 800 miles west of the Galapagos and had an area of 28 square miles. As detailed in four reports in the Oct. 10 issue of the journal Nature, the effect was immediate and striking.
The sea exploded in a frenzy of phytoplankton growth and reproduction involving trillions of organisms, with the effect reaching its maximum extent some nine days after the start of the experiment and extending over an oceanic area that had expanded to some 200 square miles. The explosion was monitored mainly by measuring levels of chlorophyll, the green pigment of plants involved in the process of photosynthesis.
Over all, the iron produced more than 2,000 times its own weight in plant growth, an impossible feat for any fertilizer on land.
"Within one week, about two million pounds of phytoplankton had grown," said Dr. Kenneth H. Coale of Moss Landing, one the authors.
At the same time, levels of carbon dioxide in the sea water plunged more than 15 percent as the expanding jungle of tiny plants soaked up the gas. Since the atmosphere and the sea constantly trade the gas through mixing and diffusion, the explosive growth had a large effect on that exchange as well.
It seems to me like this certainly could help decrease the CO2 levels until alternate fuels are in place.
