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Phil Kithil's avatar

Hmmm. Sounds like wave-driven upwelling pumps deliver the goods, 24/7/365. Upwelling the full suite of nutrients, triggering photosynthesis, increasing pH, with primary producers feeding the fish which poop the carbon. Theen there are salps......and many other beneficial critters.

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Anton Alferness's avatar

HABs will be more prevalent in warm waters and more difficult to control if mitigatable at all. Yes, the kinetics are stronger in the northern latitudes and even stronger in the southern ocean, but the NE Pacific (Gulf of Alaska) has had a fair amount of stratification, SST problems over the past 15 years. I suspect the thermocline is stronger in warm equatorial surface waters (maybe winter in warm waters would be optimal).

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Adriana Moreno's avatar

I worry about eutrophication, harmful algal blooms and such. I am guessing this would be done in vast open ocean that is very nutrient poor, anything coastal would be a mess. But this is insanely interesting.

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Quico Toro's avatar

WOOOOAAAAHHH CONTEXT MELD!!

Adry tenemos que hablar chama...

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Adriana Moreno's avatar

Claro que yes! Let's chat!

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Rationalista's avatar

There is already an insane amount of eutrophication on the coasts due to excess nitrogen fertilizer transport down rivers. So in those areas we would need a different fertilization strategy, and the perhaps microorganisms could really be helpful to get things back in balance with the right kind of nutrient feeding?

I think evaluating this in small scale studies in lots of different conditions would be super interesting.

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LoboMarino's avatar

I don't want to nitpick, but it is not CO2 that sinks down. When an organism pulls CO2 out of the air/water through photosynthesis, it captures the C while releasing the O2. This carbon will sit inside an organism, transiting from one organism to another when eaten. At some point the C goes back into the environment in the form of CO2 or it sinks to the deep where it is sequestered more long term. The same happens ashore when some vegetation ascapes the carbon cycle, is captured and transformed to coal, gas or oil. Which we humans are now bringing back into the air at a gigantic scale.

So it is not CO2 that sinks to the bottom of the ocean, but chains of C, also known as organic material. In the deep, a lack of O2 will prevent it from rotting, i.e. transforming the dead organic material back into CO2. That CO2 would ascend back up in the atmosphere and heat up the climate.

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Quico Toro's avatar

Thanks for this! I'm learning...and correcting...

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ConsDemo's avatar

Mr. Toro, have you spoken with Dave Roberts of Volts? He usually talks about renewable energy but his larger focus is on the threat of climate change and you might be a good guest for his podcast.

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