Failure to tackle rising greenhouse gas emissions effectively has led to intensifying debate on geoengineering – deliberate large-scale schemes to slow the rate at which Earth is heating up.
The public debate often mixes opinion with fact so scientists have now released the first summary for policymakers on ocean fertilization, one of the earliest geoengineering proposals.
The authors report that the chances of success of using ocean fertilization to deal with climate change is minimal.
Ocean fertilization involves adding iron or other nutrients to the surface of the ocean to trigger growth of microscopic marine plants. These plants use dissolved carbon dioxide to grow, which led to the idea that deliberate fertilization of the ocean on a large scale would remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
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”.
“The published findings suggest that even very large-scale fertilization would remove only modest amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over 100 years”.
That they needed to conduct a study to work that out speaks volumes.
They wanted the money to do the study! The results are like most everything else related to Climatology: Fabricated! SWAGs!
This would have offset the proposed blackening of the poles back in the 70s. I think if we do both, then and only then, could we have climate non-change.
Great! “Minimal” success at controlling CO2; virtual certainty of screwing the duck-up. Don’t mess with the oceans any more than we already are. Too much shift can certainly create a global disaster. File along with the nut who wanted to spray SO2 into the upper atmosphere to slow global warming. SO2 + H2O = ?? OK! Class!