As we all know, climate change is happening because greenhouse gas emissions, primarily carbon dioxide, are trapping heat inside our atmosphere. The result is the general warming of our planet. Contrary to popular belief, this does not mean all regional climates around the world will become warmer. Instead, climate change will affect weather patterns, i.e. precipitation shift, temperature variation, and changing wind patterns, etc.
I bring this up because there are many theories on how to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Obviously the best place to start is to emit less carbon in the first place (think cap and trade or carbon taxes). However, many believe the situation is so dire that we need to begin removing carbon from the atmosphere in a process known as sequestration.
This week, a group of German and Indian scientists embarked on a mission to implement a sequestration strategy known as iron fertilization. The process consists of spreading iron into iron-deprived ocean waters that will, in turn, spur the growth of plankton that "eat" carbon. When the plankton die, the theory goes, they will sink to the ocean floor, forever trapping the carbon it "ate." At this point, however, scientists don't know how effective this strategy really is, hence the experiment.
The catch is that over 200 countries agreed to a moratorium on this activity. No one knows what the effect will be, intended or otherwise. As our world moves closer to environmental disaster, it will be interesting to see what types of things nations or NGO's start to do.
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This is an interesting idea, and it could work, but there are some interesting consequences that they are probably going to have decide the probability of before going forward with something like this. There's one phenomenon in Lake Nyos in Africa that might be something they look into. Lake Nyos has an input of CO2 to the bottom of the lake from volcanic activity. Because of its density, CO2 remains at the bottom of the lake. However, in 1986 the all of the CO2 was released similtaneously, killing every living thing in the surrounding area. This is because when a stratified lake is disturbed and one CO2 gas bubble is released to the top of the lake, it causes a chain reaction that leads to the release of all of the CO2. To prevent such eruptions they now have to de-gas the lake through pipes (kind of like pond airators).
It could be possible that if the scientist don't make sure the CO2 is able to release slowly from the bottom of the ocean that the project could end up releasing CO2 over time, but the CO2 could become concentrated at the bottom of the ocean, leading to a large release of CO2 that could be lethal. I dunno, just another thing to think about...
-Christine
That is truly fascinating Christine, and something I had never heard about. Thanks!
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