'Climate fix' ship sets sail with plan to dump iron

Back to FeSO4, iron reduced by sulfuric acid. It isn't going to replicate, just react with the CO2 and provide phytoplankton nutrients. Less CO2 is good. Nutrients are good in an otherwise infertile ocean. When I go to McDonalds I order fish burgers. I hear that the fish burger polock fish are in trouble. Maybe, just maybe, the iron sulfate will help. Maybe not.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

maybe instead of a fish burger, you could make a home grown garden salad, then there would be less demand for the polock fish to make the burger in the first place.

Who is it that said oceans have to be fertile?
the great barrier reef is one of the least nutrient filled waters on the planet, yet has vast quantities and varieties of life in the ocean.
one good start would be to stop harvesting plankton to make omega3 capsules for the health concious, stop the over fishing and invest more in aquaclture and farm fish just like other food stocks.
dropping a whole heap of iron could upset the natural balance of what is intended.

nothing ventured, nothing gained?
how about, Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread

Originally posted by munkey66

Back to FeSO4, iron reduced by sulfuric acid. It isn't going to replicate, just react with the CO2 and provide phytoplankton nutrients. Less CO2 is good. Nutrients are good in an otherwise infertile ocean. When I go to McDonalds I order fish burgers. I hear that the fish burger Pollock fish are in trouble. Maybe, just maybe, the iron sulfate will help. Maybe not.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

maybe instead of a fish burger, you could make a home grown garden salad, then there would be less demand for the Pollock fish to make the burger in the first place.

Who is it that said oceans have to be fertile?
the great barrier reef is one of the least nutrient filled waters on the planet, yet has vast quantities and varieties of life in the ocean.
one good start would be to stop harvesting plankton to make omega3 capsules for the health conscious, stop the over fishing and invest more in aquaculture and farm fish just like other food stocks.
dropping a whole heap of iron could upset the natural balance of what is intended.

nothing ventured, nothing gained?
how about, Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread

Genius!

If the oceans are so resilient, then why the need for such experimentation? Our ecology should be sound.

maybe instead of a fish burger, you could make a home grown garden salad, then there would be less demand for the polock fish to make the burger in the first place.

reply to post by munkey66


It isn't me it's the 50 million McDonald's hungry fish burger customers I'm worried about. The polock harvest is down (probably due to overharvesting IMO) so fishburger prices are bound to increase. Garden salad isn't a big hit down at McDonald's, unfortunately, as it can't be cooked in grease like most things on the great American menu.

Twenty tons? of FeSO4 in this experimental dumping. That's probably only a fraction of nutrients added daily to the oceans from any one of the great rivers like the Mississippi or Amazon flood or not.

Genius!

If the oceans are so resilient, then why the need for such experimentation? Our ecology should be sound.

reply to post by resistor


The "Need" comes from scholars in our scientific community like Al Gore who insist that Global Warming is the greatest threat to humanity and other marvelous scientists who still believe the global warming climate models are correct and the earth is doomed.

Originally posted by plumranch
We would essentially be taking advantage of the CO2 in the ocean to feed marine life.
I think the oceans are more resilient that the environmentalists believe and we, therefore have a lot of latitude for experimentation.

I would strongly disagree there. I think our ability to affect global climate is grossly overestimated, and our ability to affect local ecosystems is grossly underestimated. Despite all the CO2 doomsayers, Earth's climate appears to be largely determined by the sun and movements of the Earth in relation to it. However our ability to adversely affect ecosystems by introducing toxins, non-native animals, and non-native plant life is clearly documented.

So...
If they travel around spreadding this stuff at a rate of say... 1 pound per square mile, and they spread it evenly across the surface, lets do some math.

Lets say that they can spray this stuff 175 yards in each direction to the sides of the ship. (pretty darn far). And the ship travels at 20 knots (about 23 MPH).

350 yard path
5 passes to fill up a square mile
each pass takes 2.6 minutes
This takes 13 minutes to cover 1 square mile
20 tonnes (metric tons) or 44,080 pounds (44080 square miles)
this would take 9,550 hours or 398 days,
and they would have covered .0003 percent of the oceans surface

Go to 100 pounds per square mile then you get .000003 percent coverage.

Seems like an experiment not an attempt to fix a "problem"