[sotd] Fertilizing the Ocean [January 27, 2010]
- From: "Site of the Day" <amholm@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: sotd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:28:21 -0400
Site of the Day for Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Fertilizing the Ocean
Today's site, from the always forward-looking folks at the Why Files, presents
an
exhibit which showcases a scientific direction radically different from the
reduce
and conserve mantra which has characterized the environmental movement, with
lackluster results. Instead, Gentle Subscribers will find an innovative
approach to
ameliorate global warming through active intervention, based on a concept which
has
been around for number of years,
"Cooking our planet: Could geoengineering lower the thermostat? ... The warnings
over greenhouse warming just keep steaming ahead. 2°C, once deemed a calamitous
heating, is now in the center of warming forecasts. Melting of ice sheets in
Greenland and even parts of Antarctica now seem less like sci-fi than a matter
of
time. ... As Earth warms, we may need huge geoengineering projects to fight
climate
change. Would adding iron to fertilize ocean plants withdraw enough carbon
dioxide
to slow warming? Could the plan backfire?" - from the website
The exhibit presents an even-handed consideration of both the advantages of this
geoengineering theory and possible serious and long-term deleterious
consequences
of its implementation. With vivid diagrams to illustrate the hypothesis, the
exhibit explains how fertilizing the ocean with iron would result in a dramatic
increase in plankton growth, which in turn would consume carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere and shuttle it to the ocean floor. The absurdly small quantity of
iron
required to cause a significant change in the ocean's composition at once makes
this proposal feasible and worrisome. Exploring the possible harmful effects of
this geoengineering plan, the exhibit examines the possible risks and includes
some
interesting resources in its bibliography.
Gentle Subscribers, who have already burned through a copy of
"Superfreakonomics",
will be aware of an even more simple geoengineering plan involving nothing more
pernicious than a slight increase in oceanic cloud cover.
Steam over to the site for a geoengineering thesis to control global warming at:
http://whyfiles.org/309geoengineering/
A.M. Holm
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