Simple elegant scientific analogy for our situation. Thank you Quico. Unfortunately, to continue the cake story, the United Nations has placed a ban not just on cake, but on eating anything at all, insisting instead on the merits of starvation as a health strategy.
That is the effect of the appalling tendentious definition of all ocean fertilization as "dumping pollution" and "waste disposal" under the London Protocol and Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter. This ban is based on the egregious falsehood that stopping the use of fossil fuels could be a practical strategy to slow global warming, and on the resulting cultivation of untested alarmist claims that have effectively prevented all serious field research for the last decade.
The sheer insanity of this UN fatwa against restoring the oceans is amplified by the general failure to discuss it in mass media and politics. Even more astounding, the ban is supported by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, even though restoring ocean biomass is likely to prove among the most urgent and effective possible ways to protect and enhance lost biodiversity in the midst of our sixth extinction event.
Nice analogy, though as with most analogies it misses a few important effects, such as the direct cooling that results from phytoplankton increasing ocean surface albedo and marine cloud. It is also important that the nutrients are released slowly and close to the surface - perhaps analogous to not making too much cake at once.
There may not be a single answer to such questions.
The ocean changes from time to time.
What we learned last year may not be true this year. The ocean is intensely seasonal, in those temperate regions. The water column may be very well-mixed for a while in spring and fall during the Salmon runs, and not at all mixed in midsummer or midwinter. (As I recall, I may be wrong.) So even in such regions, there may be plenty of time for a fertilization program to cause a lot of marine snow to reach the bottom and be effectively sequestered. And if the program continues through the fishy season, it might enhance the natural upwelling.
I don't think everyone will share the goal of sequestering carbon as primary. The need for restoring historic fisheries and protecting endangered species and ecosystems is likely to drive the activity. Monitoring the situation to make sure it isn't harmful to the climate and ecosystem complexity could give us justifiable confidence.
i worry some of these questions are not answerable . Perhaps we should try to stop expecting to be able to predict the future, and instead figure out how to monitor our activities and make sure that we are being productive. Or rate the productivity and Improve our Effectiveness over time. Perhaps we need a governance committee that serves as a place for stakeholders including representatives of the ecosystems themselves to meet.
It would be nice to expect that scientists, or marine farmers can predict what is going to happen if they do or don't make some effort. But perhaps unrealistic at first. We may have to be a little bit brave, like the Wright Brothers flying an airplane when there was not flight-school. We need to try to only make mistakes we can recover from and learn from. It's not healthy to be frightened to do anything just because in the past mistakes were made. Earth can't afford the mayhem that will ensue if we to neglect our responsibility to repair what we broke, the best we can.
There are so many complicating factors. I fear the best we can do is Monitor the situation and stop doing anything that seems seriously destructive.
What about different species of phytoplankton and it's predators? It's remarkable we count on it ot use up the nutrients so effectively if they are within certain boundaries. But sometimes it won't just because the biosystem is "sick" or out of balance that day. We will always have to tolerate some imperfection and not rely too much on limited measurements.
Fortunately making measurements is something tech is making us far better at. We now have affordable world wide communications and long lasting energy harvesting autonomous equipment.
Like drifting buoys and SailDrone type craft,. We can take action and keep an eye on what we are doing.
Another fine article. I'm curious though, what are the potential negative outcomes for these experiments? I'm honestly struggling to think of what can go wrong here. Worst case, we just dumped some fertilizer and didn't get the desired sustainable bloom? I figure some hyperbolic claims will be made against this approach at some point and I'd appreciate some idea which criticisms are legitimate things the researchers are taking into account and which are pseudo science alarmism.
Steven - there are a handful of legitimate concerns and a handful of slightly less legitimate concerns. But to fully place any concern into the right perspective frame, one must start with a profile of application parameters. Meaning, if we lightly fertilize an area (50,000 square kilometers) for a couple seasons then move to a different and equally appropriate place for a couple seasons, rinse and repeat, that is a different profile than say heavily fertilizing one 50k kilometer area for 20 years straight. So let's assume a thoughtful stepwise approach and pick the middle between light and heavy and single location vs multiple alternating locations (because it is not clear or proven today which would be worse, though opinions exist). The main concerns are nutrient robbing, harmful algal blooms, hypoxia (from bacterial consumption of biomass) and nitrous oxide production. Several of these would take a century (potentially) to occur with any real significant localized impact, which is outside the application window anyone rational is thinking. Ultimately, there are a bunch of unknowns that researchers have to do field trials vet out. Unfortunately, I think we're going to need "break glass in case of..." tool.
Perhaps too speculative, but the "fertilize the churn" strategy might also help increase stocks of animals, particularly whales, that cross less fertile areas, i.e., the hope would be to enhance natural fertilization.
Some researchers get real mad at the whole attitude that carbon capture somehow "doesn't count" if the carbon isn't locked away for 1000 years. That's not how we think of trees at all. You can park the carbon inside the body of marine animals in the plankton-krill-whale cycle for decades...why not?
Slowly? It's not safe for a prenant woman to swim in the ocean off Florida part of the year. The ocean is not supposed to be at unsafe hot-tub temperatures. Never happened before.
We have destroyed 95% of the coral ecosystems in the Gulf of America? What about the jobs that depended on that resource? We have expanding dead zones. Pungent Sagasum excursions. Etc. We could use some balanced traditional fisheries instead of the unstable mess we are seeing. Is it only Catch & Release fishing from now till forever? Or can we restore our fisheries. Are we even going to try to find out? There is no textbook for this.
Quico- A brilliant summary of the field today. Let's get baking!
Simple elegant scientific analogy for our situation. Thank you Quico. Unfortunately, to continue the cake story, the United Nations has placed a ban not just on cake, but on eating anything at all, insisting instead on the merits of starvation as a health strategy.
That is the effect of the appalling tendentious definition of all ocean fertilization as "dumping pollution" and "waste disposal" under the London Protocol and Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter. This ban is based on the egregious falsehood that stopping the use of fossil fuels could be a practical strategy to slow global warming, and on the resulting cultivation of untested alarmist claims that have effectively prevented all serious field research for the last decade.
The sheer insanity of this UN fatwa against restoring the oceans is amplified by the general failure to discuss it in mass media and politics. Even more astounding, the ban is supported by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, even though restoring ocean biomass is likely to prove among the most urgent and effective possible ways to protect and enhance lost biodiversity in the midst of our sixth extinction event.
Nice analogy, though as with most analogies it misses a few important effects, such as the direct cooling that results from phytoplankton increasing ocean surface albedo and marine cloud. It is also important that the nutrients are released slowly and close to the surface - perhaps analogous to not making too much cake at once.
That's a lovely & accessible metaphor.
There may not be a single answer to such questions.
The ocean changes from time to time.
What we learned last year may not be true this year. The ocean is intensely seasonal, in those temperate regions. The water column may be very well-mixed for a while in spring and fall during the Salmon runs, and not at all mixed in midsummer or midwinter. (As I recall, I may be wrong.) So even in such regions, there may be plenty of time for a fertilization program to cause a lot of marine snow to reach the bottom and be effectively sequestered. And if the program continues through the fishy season, it might enhance the natural upwelling.
I don't think everyone will share the goal of sequestering carbon as primary. The need for restoring historic fisheries and protecting endangered species and ecosystems is likely to drive the activity. Monitoring the situation to make sure it isn't harmful to the climate and ecosystem complexity could give us justifiable confidence.
i worry some of these questions are not answerable . Perhaps we should try to stop expecting to be able to predict the future, and instead figure out how to monitor our activities and make sure that we are being productive. Or rate the productivity and Improve our Effectiveness over time. Perhaps we need a governance committee that serves as a place for stakeholders including representatives of the ecosystems themselves to meet.
It would be nice to expect that scientists, or marine farmers can predict what is going to happen if they do or don't make some effort. But perhaps unrealistic at first. We may have to be a little bit brave, like the Wright Brothers flying an airplane when there was not flight-school. We need to try to only make mistakes we can recover from and learn from. It's not healthy to be frightened to do anything just because in the past mistakes were made. Earth can't afford the mayhem that will ensue if we to neglect our responsibility to repair what we broke, the best we can.
There are so many complicating factors. I fear the best we can do is Monitor the situation and stop doing anything that seems seriously destructive.
What about different species of phytoplankton and it's predators? It's remarkable we count on it ot use up the nutrients so effectively if they are within certain boundaries. But sometimes it won't just because the biosystem is "sick" or out of balance that day. We will always have to tolerate some imperfection and not rely too much on limited measurements.
Fortunately making measurements is something tech is making us far better at. We now have affordable world wide communications and long lasting energy harvesting autonomous equipment.
Like drifting buoys and SailDrone type craft,. We can take action and keep an eye on what we are doing.
Another fine article. I'm curious though, what are the potential negative outcomes for these experiments? I'm honestly struggling to think of what can go wrong here. Worst case, we just dumped some fertilizer and didn't get the desired sustainable bloom? I figure some hyperbolic claims will be made against this approach at some point and I'd appreciate some idea which criticisms are legitimate things the researchers are taking into account and which are pseudo science alarmism.
Steven - there are a handful of legitimate concerns and a handful of slightly less legitimate concerns. But to fully place any concern into the right perspective frame, one must start with a profile of application parameters. Meaning, if we lightly fertilize an area (50,000 square kilometers) for a couple seasons then move to a different and equally appropriate place for a couple seasons, rinse and repeat, that is a different profile than say heavily fertilizing one 50k kilometer area for 20 years straight. So let's assume a thoughtful stepwise approach and pick the middle between light and heavy and single location vs multiple alternating locations (because it is not clear or proven today which would be worse, though opinions exist). The main concerns are nutrient robbing, harmful algal blooms, hypoxia (from bacterial consumption of biomass) and nitrous oxide production. Several of these would take a century (potentially) to occur with any real significant localized impact, which is outside the application window anyone rational is thinking. Ultimately, there are a bunch of unknowns that researchers have to do field trials vet out. Unfortunately, I think we're going to need "break glass in case of..." tool.
We shall destroy Earth
to avoid the
unintended consequences
of saving it.
Perhaps too speculative, but the "fertilize the churn" strategy might also help increase stocks of animals, particularly whales, that cross less fertile areas, i.e., the hope would be to enhance natural fertilization.
There are two groups actively working on this idea!
https://www.oceannourishment.com/whalex
https://positivepolar.com/
Some researchers get real mad at the whole attitude that carbon capture somehow "doesn't count" if the carbon isn't locked away for 1000 years. That's not how we think of trees at all. You can park the carbon inside the body of marine animals in the plankton-krill-whale cycle for decades...why not?
Slowly? It's not safe for a prenant woman to swim in the ocean off Florida part of the year. The ocean is not supposed to be at unsafe hot-tub temperatures. Never happened before.
We have destroyed 95% of the coral ecosystems in the Gulf of America? What about the jobs that depended on that resource? We have expanding dead zones. Pungent Sagasum excursions. Etc. We could use some balanced traditional fisheries instead of the unstable mess we are seeing. Is it only Catch & Release fishing from now till forever? Or can we restore our fisheries. Are we even going to try to find out? There is no textbook for this.
The natural cycle?