Climate scientists seek a urea moment: …fertilise the ocean…plankton to slow climate change.

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/climate-scientists-seek-a-urea-moment/2009/01/20/1232213646774.html

Climate scientists seek a urea moment

Ben Cubby Environment Reporter
January 21, 2009

SYDNEY researchers are pushing ahead with controversial plans to fertilise the ocean off Australia's coast and use plankton to slow climate change.

The director of the University of Sydney's Ocean Technology Group, Professor Ian Jones, said sprinkling nitrate fertiliser across an area of ocean just 40 kilometres by 40 kilometres would stimulate the growth of carbon-absorbing plankton on a scale big enough to meet the Federal Government's total greenhouse gas reduction target for 2020.

But many scientists believe the claims are too good to be true, and fertilising the ocean could have unpredictable effects on marine life, including the creation of vast blooms of toxic algae.

The university team plans to set sail in March to spread 100 kilograms of urea, a nitrate-rich fertiliser, in the Tasman Sea outside of Australian territorial waters, but they are waiting for government permission to undertake the experiment.

The fertiliser causes a population explosion of single-celled phytoplankton, which absorbs carbon dioxide from the air at an astonishing rate. One tonne of fertiliser can help create enough plankton to soak up 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide, Professor Jones said. When the plankton dies it falls to the seabed, taking its load of carbon with it, and mineralises in the depths.

…

[Xipe Totec]

But how do we know sprinkling nitrate fertilizer can destroy the Earth,

if we don't try it? :shrug:




:sarcasm:(tm) thingie added for the humor impaired.

[Warpy]

1. It might also tend to restore a lot of fish stocks

since many feed on plankton and then feed other fish.

There's probably an unanticipated down side. There always is.

[jpak]

2. Ugh-heterotrophic bacteria respond faster to nitrogen fertilization than eukaryotic phytoplankton

They will respire any new primary production right back to CO2 and create a lot of unintended consequences...

:thumbs down:

[tom_paine]

12. I tend to agree. Mybe we should get the jump on everyone, "Who could have foreseen...?"

I thought I'd ask the question first, and save everyone the time and trouble of having to ask it in Sydney 2028.

:rofl:

I like to get a jump on things.

[Duppers]

16. I'll 2nd that. It will not work.

:thumbsdown:

[NOW tense]

3. Is this why

someday there is going to be a large monster coming in from the sea and destroying a city.

[Gregorian]

4. Hmmm.

That just doesn't ring a good tone.

[kestrel91316]

5. Fertilizer runoff is what has created the many ocean DEAD ZONES.

This has got to be the single most boneheaded idea I have ever heard of.

Jesus wept.

[kristopher]

7. "Fertilizer runoff"

If you'll notice, the ocean areas bounding land is green versus blue further out to sea, that is due to nutrient runoff from land. Just the presence of nutrients isn't a bad thing, unless you want dead oceans. The "dead zones" you're referring to are a result of excess nutrients.

I've yet to see any solid evidence that this approach is harmful.

[chucktaylor]

6. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope ......

Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases – all of which have a direct impact on food supplies.

“The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.” Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.

Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

The Cooling World
Newsweek, April 28, 1975

Global cooling and the proposals that HAD to be taken immediately to prevent it.

I was only 16 when I first read this and I thought it was a bad idea then. This is a bad idea now.

[kristopher]

8. Straight from Limbaugh's website, eh?

Your "cooling" article is straight from Limbaugh, no?

Try this:

A Brief History of Global Warming Science
1859: Tyndall establishes that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

1890s: Arrhenius surmises that the climate of the earth could potentially be changed by the CO2 emitted from the human use of fossil fuels.

1930s: Guy Callendar assembles evidence that the effects of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are capable of being perceived.

1950s: Plass, Suess and Revelle follow up on Callendar’s research.

1960s: Keeling uses systematic measuring to establish that concentration of atmospheric CO2 is rising.

1965: Environmental Pollution Board of the President’s Science Advisory Council warns that by 2000 there will be 25% increase in CO2 concentrations from 1965 level. “his will modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes in climate...could occur.”

1965: President Johnson states in Special Message to Congress that “This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through...a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.”

1966: U.S. National Academy of Sciences Panel on Weather and Climate Modification repeats warning.

1974: Weinberg, Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory “realized that climatological impacts might limit oil production before geology did.”

1978: Robert White (NOAA’s first administrator and a President of the National Academy of Engineering states “We now understand that ... carbon dioxide released during the burning of fossil fuels, can have consequences for climate that pose a considerable threat to future society ... The potential ... impacts ominous.”

1979: JASON committee (Stanford Research Insitute) publishes 184 page technical report warning of expected doubling of CO2 concentrations “by about 2035” with wide variety of undetermined possible geophysical, economic, political and social consequences.

1979: Carter Science Advisor Frank Press requests National Academy of Sciences for review of JASON committee report. Academy committee headed by MIT meteorologist Jule Charney concurs with JASON report “If carbon dioxide continues to increase, find no reason to doubt that climate changes will result, and no reason to believe that these changes will be negligible.” (Oreskes, 2006)

[chucktaylor]

9. So you are all for fertilizing the Oceans? Or did the reason for the post go over your head?

The number of times man has tried to tamper with Nature and has filed in unexpected ways are too numerous to detail. Shoreline sculpting, non-native plants and animals, etc..

Scientists were sure of lots of things before being proven wrong. Einstein didn't want to publish because he didn't want to piss on Newton. Several of the boys you listed above believed in the "ether."

I'm saying lets just ramp back on changing the chemistry of the Ocean's to save them from what may happen.

But I guess all that is outranked by your infantile Limbaugh card.

[kristopher]

10. If you had meant that then you should have written

Instead of quoting one of the more popular pieces of denialist literature without comment. As to "The number of times man has tried to tamper with Nature and has filed in unexpected ways are too numerous to detail" all I can say is that our existence necessitates we "tamper with nature" since we are an intergral part of nature and cannot function outside of the system in which we live.

As with most such objections yours seems to be based on religious beliefs rather than objective knowledge. Ok, I've got that and I'll file it with the other faith based objections. Myself, I want to see greater understanding of the entire process of ocean fertilization because the choice may boil down to an either/or one where the potential benefits and damage of such fertilization is weighed against the damage of a 450ppm concentration of atmospheric CO2.

I take the position that knowledge prepares us to make better decisions.

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. The number of times man has tried to tamper with Nature…

We cannot "tamper with Nature." Humanity is part of Nature. The sooner we all understand and embrace that, the better.

All species tend to alter their environment. Our species is capable of doing so quite dramatically.

We owe our very existence to species who quite dramatically altered their environment, to the point of fundamentally altering the planet's atmosphere (see "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_Catastrophe">Oxygen Catastrophe.")

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. Global warming experiment risky: WWF

http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/breaking-news-national/global-warming-experiment-risky-wwf-20090121-7mso.html

Global warming experiment risky: WWF

January 21, 2009 - 9:09PM

A Sydney University proposal to produce a plankton bloom in the Tasman Sea, as part of a trial to combat global warming, has drawn criticism from environmental groups.

Under the proposal, nitrate fertiliser would be sprinkled over a 1,600 square kilometre area of the sea to stimulate the bloom that researchers hope will sequester carbon at the bottom of the ocean for up to a century.

The UN's International Panel for Climate Change has described such a method of carbon sequestration as "speculative and unproven and with the risk of unknown side effects".

"If this experiment proceeds, the Australian Government's credibility as a protector of the oceans is on the line," conservation organisation WWF Australia's Rob Nicoll said in a statement.

…

[kristopher]

14. "speculative and unproven and with the risk of unknown side effects"

Or you could say exactly the same thing this way: that hypothetically it has potential to be an aid in combatting climate change, but further testing is required to determine the efficacy, gain a greater understanding of the full range of processes at work, and evaluate those processes for their full range of consequences.

Of course, it sounds better in the press to make it elicit a kneejerk fear...

[Nihil]

15. The first way is accurate & concise; the second is almost pure PR.

Your alternate phrase ...

> hypothetically it has potential to be an aid in combatting
> climate change, but further testing is required to determine
> the efficacy, gain a greater understanding of the full range
> of processes at work, and evaluate those processes for their
> full range of consequences

... is an unnecessarily cumbersome and fluffy way of saying
"We don't know but hey, let's give it a go to see what happens".

It's not surprising that they stayed with "speculative and unproven
and with the risk of unknown side effects" as at least it provides
a fig-leaf of science over the flabby nudity of business.

Let's stick to "accurate & concise".

:shrug:

[kristopher]

18. If the purpose of the project were commercial

But it isn't, it is reasearch. The "accurate & concise" is fear mongering.

[PVnRT]

17. I see all manner of bad unforeseen consequences from this

It's a nice thought, and I like thinking big like this, but I'd be afraid of the potential for overgrowth of plankton and the effect on the food chain.

Something like this is a last-minute Hail Mary solution, not what we need right now.

[kristopher]

19. So you think research into answering the questions you just posed

should wait until the last "Hail Mary" minute when we just go for it large scale without having a full understanding of the effects?

Or would you prefer research such as the OP proposes go forward now in order to fully know what our options are and what would be the consequences of the "Hail Mary" pass should it come down to that?

[PVnRT]

20. Did I say that?

No, I didn't, you're performing your own kneejerk reaction to my comment, as you've done to plenty of others in this thread.

[kristopher]

21. Then what did you mean

You wrote "It's a nice thought, and I like thinking big like this, but I'd be afraid of the potential for overgrowth of plankton and the effect on the food chain.

Something like this is a last-minute Hail Mary solution, not what we need right now."

Considering the project proposed "right now" is a research experiment designed to look at things like "the potential for overgrowth of plankton and the effect on the food chain"; which you say worry you because "this is a last-minute Hail Mary solution".

So do you: 1) support learning more about it now or 2) waiting until desperation forces us to deploy it on a wide scale without a full understanding of the effects 3) acting as if we can rule its future use out now, even though it clearly is a potential avenue we may be forced to follow?

I just asked you for clarity; care to provide some?

[.... callchet ....]

22. ......Don't do it !

The only way to get back is to stop doing what we did to get here. There is no wild eyed solution that is going to safely do anything except get funds from environmental, supporters.