Upcoming Geo-Engineering Ocean Fertilization Experiment
Two takes on an upcoming geo-engineering experiment.
The UK Daily Mail, "Amazing discovery of green algae which could save the world from global warming," Jan 4, 2009.
Melting icebergs, so long the iconic image of global warming, are triggering a natural process that could delay or even end climate change, British scientists have found. ... The iron feeds algae, which blooms and sucks up damaging carbon dioxide (CO2), then sinks, locking away the harmful greenhouse gas for hundreds of years.
[A] ground-breaking experiment will be held this month off the British island of South Georgia, 800 miles south east of the Falklands. It will see if the phenomenon could be harnessed to contain rising carbon emissions. Researchers will use several tons of iron sulphate to create an artificial bloom of algae. The patch will be so large it will be visible from space. ...
The aim is to discover whether artificially fertilising the area will create more algae in the Great Southern Ocean. That ocean is an untapped resource for soaking up CO2 because it doesn't have much iron, unlike other seas.
And the ETC Group, an Ottawa, Canada-based nonprofit, "German Geo-engineers Show Iron Will to Defy Global UN Moratorium," Jan 9, 2009.
A controversial climate-engineering expedition - flying the German flag - set sail from South Africa, in defiance of a United Nations agreement signed by 191 nations and brokered by Germany last May. ...
The hope is that "fertilizing" the ocean with iron will result in carbon sequestration, and prove to be a quick fix for climate change. Earlier experiments with ocean fertilization have not shown this to be the case.
In 2008, both the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the London Convention of the International Maritime Organisation - the treaty that governs the dumping of wastes at sea - enacted a global moratorium on ocean fertilization activities because of the ecological risks to the oceans and climate.
Update Jan 14: At the Wired blog, Climos CEO Dan Whaley rebuts the ETC Group's claims of illegitimacy under the London Convention.
Hypoxia
Dumping a bunch of sulphate fertilizer into the ocean and spawning an algae bloom will just make a huge deadzone.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/15/MNLD12ADSN.DTL
all our cities generate them now, this would be a catastrophic solution to atmospheric carbon.