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Study: Ocean Geoengineering Scheme No Easy Fix For Global Warming; ‘There Remain Many Uncertainties’

 

Editors Note:  infusing carbon dioxide into the ocean causes H2CO3  Carbonic Acid. . .we will acidify the ocean if the below occurs.

This map displays simulated additional surface warming for the year 2100 caused by the temporary use of artificial upwelling GEOMAR

SOUTHAMPTON, UK — Pumping nutrient-rich water up from the deep ocean to boost algal growth in sunlit surface waters and draw carbon dioxide down from the atmosphere has been touted as a way of ameliorating global warming. However, a new study led by Professor Andreas Oschlies of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR) in Kiel, Germany, pours cold water on the idea.

"Computer simulations show that climatic benefits of the proposed geo-engineering scheme would be modest, with the potential to exacerbate global warming should it fail," said study co-author Dr Andrew Yool of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS).

If international governmental policies fail to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide to levels needed to keep the impacts of human-induced climate change within acceptable limits it may necessary to move to ‘Plan B’. This could involve the implementation of one or more large-scale geo-engineering schemes proposed for reducing the carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere.

One possible approach is to engineer the oceans to facilitate the long-term sequestration of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It has been suggested that this could be done by pumping of nutrient-rich water from a depth of several hundred metres to fertilize the growth of phytoplankton, the tiny marine algae that dominate biological production in surface waters.

The aim would be to mimic the effects of natural ocean upwelling and increase drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide by phytoplankton through the process of photosynthesis. Some of the sequestered carbon would be exported to the deep ocean when phytoplankton die and sink, effectively removing it from the system for hundreds or thousands of years.

A previous study, of which Yool was lead author, used an ocean general circulation model to conclude that literally hundreds of millions of pipes would be required to make a significant impact on global warming. But even if the technical and logistical difficulties of deploying the vast numbers of pipes could be overcome, exactly how much carbon dioxide could in principle be sequestered, and at what risk?

In the new study, the researchers address such questions using a more integrated model of the whole Earth system. The simulations show that, under most optimistic assumptions, three gigatons of carbon dioxide per year could be captured. This is under a tenth of the annual anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, which currently stand at 36 gigatons per year. A gigaton is a million million kilograms.

One surprising feature of the simulations was that the main effect occurred on land rather than the ocean. Cold water pumped to the surface cooled the atmosphere and the land surface, slowing the decomposition of organic material in soil, and ultimately resulting in about 80 per cent of the carbon dioxide sequestered being stored on land. "This remote and distributed carbon sequestration would make monitoring and verification particularly challenging," write the researchers.

More significantly, when the simulated pumps were turned off, the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and surface temperatures rose rapidly to levels even higher than in the control simulation without artificial pumps. This finding suggests that there would be extra environmental costs to the scheme should it ever need to be turned off for unanticipated reasons.

"All models make assumptions and there remain many uncertainties, but based on our findings it is hard to see the use of artificial pumps to boost surface production as being a viable way of tackling global warming," said Yool.

Editor’s Note:  this is a baaad idea, its about the environment, stoopid?

Two-and-a-half miles under the ocean, but the Titanic is still providing lessons

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By Jessie Moniz

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The bow and mast of the Titanic.

Some of the wreckage of the Titanic.

Lecture: Steve Blasco

Scientists are learning valuable lessons about climate change from one of the world’s most famous historic marine tragedies, the sinking of the “unsinkable” White Star cruiseliner Titanic.

On the Titanic’s maiden voyage on April 14, 1912, the cruise liner struck an iceberg and sank in icy water off Newfoundland, Canada. The ship was bound for New York. Out of the 2,228 people on board of the Titanic, 1,232 died and 868 survived.

For years people have debated many questions related to the Titanic, including what sank the vessel that was originally billed as a supership.

Canadian marine engineering geophysicist, Steve Blasco, will answer some of these questions in a lecture tonight at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI) entitled ‘Unlocking Mysteries of the Titanic‘.

Twenty years ago, Mr. Blasco was one of the first scientists to go into the deep ocean of the Atlantic where the Titanic sank two-and-a-half miles below the surface.

Mr. Blasco works with the Geological Survey of Canada, at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

“I have been involved with the Titanic for about 20 years,” said Mr. Blasco. “I started out with a curiosity about how the deep ocean was changing.”

Mr. Blasco worked with Dr. Bob Ballard when Dr. Ballard discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1986.

Dr. Ballard, Mr. Blasco and a team of scientists went back in 1991 to launch the first scientific exhibition to look at the wreck of the Titanic.

“Once Dr. Ballard discovered it all sorts of questions came back,” said Mr. Blasco.

Mr. Blasco had a look at the Titanic in a three-manned Russian submersible. He said until the voyage most people thought that the deep ocean was like a refrigerator, cold and void of life.

“We thought that everything would be perfectly preserved,” he said.

What they found was quite different than their expectations. Although the Titanic was brand new and rust free when it sank, they found a badly rusted and corroded hulk, 80 years later.

Although they expected the ocean to be devoid of life at this depth they actually found several new animal species living in the wreck, and saw fish.

“So that was a surprise,” he said. “It is very high pressure down there, and it is zero degrees, cold and dark. We had a new kind of light on the submersible, much more powerful light than they had developed.”

They also learned what had caused the Titanic to sink in the first place.

“There was always a big question about why the ice was so effective at sinking the ship,” said Mr. Blasco. “The ship was only hit by a small piece of ice. This was mankind’s leading edge technology that was taken down by a small bit of Mother Nature.

“We have been involved with that as to why.”

He said there were several factors that added together sealed the fate of the ship, but in the end it was faulty steel that led to such a terrible tragedy.

“They were just learning to make the steel, and it was brittle,” said Mr. Blasco. “So when the ice hit it, it fractured the steel and that caused a great crack. The crack propagated along the side along all the plates and that allowed the wall of water to come in, which was not really understood at the time.”

Mr. Blasco said it was an eerie experience going into the deep sea to see the Titantic wreck.

“As a scientist I was interested in the wreck in terms of what it could tell us about geology, chemistry and biology and the deep sea, but I was still struck by the human aspect,” he said. “It was a gravesite for around 1,500 people.

“That wasn’t to be taken lightly. When you are there you definitely sense that.”

And he said as he and his colleagues undertook the dangerous mission to the bottom of the ocean, he was painfully aware of the Titanic’s major lesson — man’s foolishness.

“Sometimes I felt we were awfully confident about going down there in light of such a huge tragedy and saying we are not going to suffer the same fate,” he said. “You think about all those things when you are down there.”

This was brought home when another team in a submersible became caught up in the Titanic wreckage.

“We went up very close to it,” said Mr. Blasco. “There is so much wreckage around that you could easily get trapped. At one point one of the submersibles actually did get trapped and it took them awhile to get free. They were investigating part of the hull, debris and part of the light system got caught in the wreckage.”

With limited visibility, all they could do was wiggle the vessel this way and that until they broke free.

“I wasn’t in that submersible though,” Mr. Blasco said. “We just ran out of power on my trip, which was a little nerve racking.”

Several years later, Mr. Blasco was pleased to talk with a survivor of the Titanic, Eva Hart who was seven-years-old at the time of the disaster.

“She did remember certain things about it,” said Mr. Blasco.

“She never talked about nightmares but in her later years she became very philosophical about it. She lost her father.

“It was very interesting working with her. She was quite convinced that the Titanic was a bit of a metaphor for man’s arrogance to say that technology could beat Mother Nature at any time. She predicted we would forget the lesson and do it again.”

He said the trip to view the Titanic helped to confirm that the deep ocean was not impervious to climate change.

“We tend to think of it as being out of circulation,” he said. “Visiting the Titanic gave us a much better idea of what the deep sea looked like. The question is, if we go back in 50 years, what will the Titanic look like then?

“We have some baseline information that we did not have before.”

He said it was now not uncommon to use wrecks as a environmental barometer.

“The wrecks can act as indicators of change on the bottom, particularly current action,” said Mr. Blasco. “We have a few areas in the deep ocean where they say there is no current action.

“But when you go down there, you get one side of the ship that is quite eroded away and the sediments are piled up on the other side, so it tells us there are currents where we didn’t expect them. So you can use the wrecks to indicate what is going on in the environment.”

Mr. Blasco was in Bermuda working on a joint climate change study project between Canada and a number of Bermuda organisations including the BUEI and The Bermuda, Aquarium, Museum & Zoo .

He said he was pleased to hear that BUEI was planning to keep their current Titanic exhibit, which includes photographs and memorabilia relating to the sunken ship, on show permanently.

“They are going to go from this travelling exhibit to a permanent exhibit,” said Mr. Blasco. “There are very few places in the world where that will be true, simply because of public interest. Some of the people who have offered stuff have said to keep the stuff. It is properly curated here, and it will be available to the public. It won’t be stored in the back or lost. The BUEI is a perfect venue.”

ScienceDaily — Researchers in Canada are reporting for the first time that high mercury levels in certain Arctic seals appear to be linked to vanishing sea ice caused by global warming. Their study provides new insight into the impact of climate change on Arctic marine life.

Gary Stern and colleagues note in the new study that Canadian Arctic ringed seals, like many Arctic marine animals, have relatively high levels of mercury. However, researchers have never determined how these levels are linked to sea ice extent and the resulting composition of arctic cod and other prey containing mercury available to ringed seals.

The scientists analyzed the mercury content in muscle samples collected from ringed seals between 1973 and 2007. They then compared the levels to the length of the so-called “summer ice-free season,” a warm period marked by vanishing sea ice in the seals’ habitat. They found that the seals accumulated more mercury during both short (2 months) and long (5 months) ice-free seasons and postulate that this is related to the seals’ food supplies.

Higher seal mercury concentrations may follow relatively short ice-free seasons due to consumption of older, more highly contaminated Arctic cod while relatively long ice-free seasons may promote higher pelagic productivity and thus increased survival and abundance of Arctic cod with the overall result of more fish consumption and greater exposure to mercury. Longer ice-free seasons resulting from a warming Arctic may therefore result in higher mercury levels in ringed seal populations as well as their predators (polar bears and humans).

Gone fishin’! Record numbers of Britons sit out the recession on the UK’s river banks
“What did you do in the great recession of 2009, Dad?” “Er, son, I went fishing.”

By Christopher Hope, Whitehall Editor

Atlantic salmon jumping up stream: British wildlife faces climate change devastation, warns Environment Agency
Leaping salmon faced a bigger battle to reach their spawning grounds in 2009 as record numbers went fishing Photo: PA

Figures out today from the Environment Agency show that the number of fishing licences sold this year has hit an all time high.

In 2009 almost 1.5 million licences to fish in England and Wales were sold – a 12 per cent increase on 2008, an all-time record, and a 50 per cent increase on 2000, when one million licences were sold.

The agency said that cleaner rivers, free angling guides and the recession also fuelled the popularity of the river sport.

The agency said that “once grossly polluted waters like the rivers Wandle, Taff, Mersey, Don, and Irwell and the canals of Birmingham, now support healthy fish populations”.

Mat Crocker, the agency’s head of Fisheries, added: “Though there’s still much to do, more and more of our rivers are now supporting healthy fish populations.

“The result is that major coarse fishing rivers such as the Severn, Thames and lower Trent have been providing consistently good fishing.

“There are now salmon in all of the rivers of the South Wales coalfield that once ran black with coal and this year we have tracked one salmon to the top of the Rhondda thanks to a huge turnaround in water quality and works to help fish swim further upstream.”

An annual coarse fishing rod licence costs £26 a year. Licence sales generated more than £26 million in revenue. The agency said that all of the cash will be “re-invested in helping to maintain and improve fisheries”.

The Gulf Stream system is known for its impact on Europe’s mild climate. For quite some time oceanographers and climate scientists worry that its strength could decline due to the climate change. Unexpected help could come from the ocean currents south of Africa: researchers have now discovered that the Agulhas Current transports more saline waters into the Atlantic. These could potentially contribute to stabilize the Gulf Stream system.

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