Seeding Ocean No Panacea to Warming

By GAIL GALLESSICH http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/93106/2004/May10/seeding.html
Mark Brzezinski, professor of biology and deputy director of the UCSB Marine Science Institute, center in white T-shirt, prepares to leave New Zealand for the Southern Ocean iron-seeding experiment.

Scientists are learning about the history and possibly the future of climate change by fertilizing the ocean with iron to create blooms of microscopic plants. These microscopic marine plants in the Southern Ocean may have played a pivotal role in developing the Earth's climate during past ice ages, explained Mark Brzezinski, professor of biology and deputy director of the UCSB Marine Science Institute. He took part in a major ocean fertilization study, known as SOFeX, for Southern Ocean Iron Enrichment Experiments, involving many institutions that was initiated 12 years ago. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. The results of the research project were described last month in the journal Science. There are three major areas of the ocean where iron is a limiting factor in the growth of these plants: the sub-Arctic Pacific, the Equatorial Pacific, and the Southern Ocean. By adding iron to the ocean's surface, the tiny plants, called phytoplankton, increase in number in these locations. The plants draw carbon dioxide—an important greenhouse gas—from the atmosphere to live. Iron was more plentiful in the atmosphere during the ice ages because the Earth was drier at that time. The dryness caused more iron-ladened dust to be picked up by the wind, which then fertilized the ocean. More plant productivity in the ocean meant a reduction in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Brzezinski, one of 17 principal investigators, took part in a major expedition to the Southern Ocean to test the theory. He spent 42 days at sea. With UCSB technician Janice Jones and graduate student Mark Demarest, he took part in dropping iron sulfate into two areas of the Southern Ocean. The goal was to observe the growth and fate of the marine plants under such enriched conditions. In order to simulate ice-age conditions, the scientists added iron to surface waters in two patches, each 15 kilometers on a side, so that the concentration of this micronutrient reached about 50 parts per trillion—a 100-fold increase over ambient concentrations. Even at this low concentration, massive blooms of phytoplankton covered thousands of square kilometers. Each of these blooms consumed over 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide. Certain plants, like diatoms, are heavy and sink into the deep ocean. "If they are eaten, or decomposed by bacteria, and if that occurs at depth, then the carbon dioxide is retained in the deep sea where it is sequestered for at least 1,000 or more years," said Brzezinski. Some of the findings from the study suggest that, when extrapolated over large regions, iron fertilization could cause billions of tons of carbon to be removed from the atmosphere each year. Removal of this much atmospheric carbon dioxide could have helped cool the Earth during ice ages. Similarly, some have proposed that a massive iron fertilization program could help mitigate the current trend toward global warming. Brzezinski, however, is not optimistic about preventing global warming through fertilization of the ocean. He said that his measurements did not show a strong enough result to expect that fertilization could reverse global warming. "It's still an open question as to whether or not this is a viable way to export carbon to the deep sea," he said.

In order to simulate ice-age conditions, the scientists added iron to surface waters in two patches, each 15 kilometers on a side, so that the concentration of this micronutrient reached about 50 parts per trillion—a 100-fold increase over ambient concentrations. Even at this low concentration, massive blooms of phytoplankton covered thousands of square kilometers. Each of these blooms consumed over 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide.

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"It's still an open question as to whether or not this is a viable way to export carbon to the deep sea," he said.

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TRANSLATION: We haven't yet figured out a way to license it to generate more research funding, and we have too much invested in Global Warming Research to end the gravy train now.

Want to slow global warming? A C-150 with spray booms can cover a lot of water in a couple of weeks. Check the ksp (solubility product constant) of FeSO4 in water to get your application rate. At 50 parts per trillion, a couple of hundred tons of FeSO4 should go a long way. Don't worry about overdosing, ferrous iron is oxidized to ferric rather quickly, and excess iron will precipitate as the hydroxide. Marine limestone deposits buffer against any pH change. But I hate the wasted money with improper application. Anyone want to donate a ton of Feso4 to the project? I have a buddy who can arrange the C-150. George F. Oerther, Jr. oertg@aol.com

By defination a Farmer is outstanding in his field.

A local corn farmer can heat enough homes to supplant the 55 tons of carbon each year. Heating with corn combustion emits 50-100 times less carbon than natural gas - the next cleaniest petro fuel other than locally renewable fuels. The emission rate of the supplanted fuel or energy released must be revealed to reveal the amount of corn needed.

That you will be able to burn all Carbon and make carbon-di-oxide is called 100% efficient on Carbonic fuel. rocket use solid and liqued fuel that is not carbon based and do not produce Carbon-di-oxide. Use Rocket fuel in your cars if you like and get to supper speeds. Use the same thing in aeroplanes and trains and buses.

Plant trees instead of cutting them down.

Plant trees instead of cutting them down.

The best idea yet

Do you want to live in cities or want to move to forest? Perhaps Tarzen life is not a bad idea. I was born in a village full of trees and love that but I also love computers, trains and aeroplanes. So what is your estimate for trees? We already have 2/3 water on earth and half of the land is either desert or hills so we have only 1/6 of the earth for us. How much you want it to go for forect? or you want to move cities to forest or forest to cities.

We have 80% farmers in India and USA has only 10%. We are three times the USA in population so we have 24:1 ratio in who lives in forest. We are already living in forest so it is the turn of others to follow us.

You could use a heating system that is net CO2 negative. Check out grainbioenergy.com. It uses whole kernal grains directly as a fuel source.

Grain oil is food and expensive. Not to be burnt in heating.

Increased demand for corn results in a decrease in price of corn. Here's why.

Sierra Club calculations estimate a net positive 484 pounds of CO2 are converted to oxygen annually by each average US home that heats with corn. Other calculations are show larger numbers.

On the other hand, it takes six acres of trees to equal one acre of corn in conversion of CO and CO2 to oxygen. Field test show corn growth accelerates in a linear manner relative to the % CO and CO2.

Speaking for the US only - not for India or China - the margin of profit for corn is less than 10 cents per bushel. Increased demand for corn represents a slight increase in price. A 10c per bushel increase in corn price will double the Farm profit which will result in an increased supply of corn. The more profit from corn results in increased supply of corn.

Once again, more corn grown for food and energy results in increased competition between 2 million farms deciding whether to grow corn or raise cain about low prices. Heating with corn increases the amount of corn available for human and livestock food.

Additionally, the US grew OVER 1.2 Billion bushels more corn than was used in all forms (feed, ethanol, food, oils, exports, etc.) What would you suggest we do with this and other surplus grains? Continue to let it rot or feed rats? US government grain farmer subsidies are in the billions of dollars each year and until those subsidies are removed, grain prices will continue to be suppressed due to tremendous supply.

If nature did not have the proper feedback loops already in place, there would not be life on this planet. Human induced global warming by co2 is a hoax. The data does NOT support it. See co2science.com

We should thank each person for every pound of clean co2 they make. Nature does NOT produce "clean" co2 due to the poor combustion process where fuel and O2 are not dispersed enough for combustion. We should promote large gas guzzlers because of the good and clean conversion that occurs in a well tuned car. Think of a Hummer as a large fertilizer machine. The more the better. I am glad I don't have to pay for the fuel, yet I get the benefit of the co2 all around me. The carbon cycle is a cycle and the more co2 that moves the better, creating continual life renewal.

The deserts of the world will turn green when the co2 levels are high enough. Many controled experiments have shown that if the planet is getting warmer (by solar or internal heating) the co2 concentration MUST rise or there are negative effects. The Planet naturally responses by increasing co2 concentrations as temperatures rise. This is one reason co2 concentrations LAG (not lead) temperature increases. Triple the co2 concentration and we would be about right (1200 ppm), and that would take hundreds of years and a Hummer in every garage all around the world.

Think about it for a nanosecond or two...you are being duped into a world tax which will do nothing for the planet, and fund a bunch of corrupt UN beaurocrats. Follow the money...

I would like to see who did these studies you speak of, but that is encouraging to hear. I'm sick of all the doomsday predictions about humans creating the next ice age.

It seems like everyone just drinks the kool-aid when it comes to global warming. Even if it is true that the temperature is rising, it seems like everyone assumes that it is because of us.

We should consider the idea that it is possible for the earth to warm without our help, and there are many factors other than fossil fuels for the warming and cooling of the earth.

Why does the % oxygen in air remain constant?

Airborne Pollution, particulate, smoke, moisture (RH), etc. displaces and reduces the 78% nitrogen in the air in order that the % oxygen is stable for human consumption. What causes the oxygen to remain constant rather than the nitrogen or both?

See Plain Guy is correct. Irrigated deserts raise green grapes and rain soon returns to land deserted for 2000 years. Visit Becca Valley, or the Kabutz in Jordan, for example. Be sure to take an umbrella.

Conversion of CO2 to oxygen speeds up in a greenhouse as the % CO2 increases. Greenhouses flourish when heated with corn combustion exhaust.

Corn plant growth accelerates as the percent CO2 increases. Corn plant growth is converting CO2 to oxygen at an accelerated rate until the % oxygen reaches norm. Likewise with other plants. It happens the experiments evaluated corn plant growth. The assumption other plant growth, trees, vegetation responds accordingly and equally with corn plants.

Energy from renewable fuels also renew the atmosphere in real time here now today in the real world. Everyone knows. Results from the above experiments verify.

Energy that may have taken millions of years to formulate (natural gas, gas, coal, petro) - will it take millions of years to reformulate the atmosphere. No one knows. No one is absolutely positive that those fuels took millions of years to formulate. Lab results can duplicate those formulations in months - not millions. No one knows.

What we do know without doubt - renewable fuels are clean, cost effective, available, reliable, edible, safely stored, transported, handled and are renewable annually locally.

What we also know is the facts don't matter. Matter matters. Choices matter. People matter. Don't confuse the public with the facts. The choice is individual.

Good conclusion. People and their attitude matters a lot more than theory. However some people can change things in planned way that entire population may not be able to do so.

India has planned 9 bio reserves where entry by others not allowed. Only naturally born tribal can exist there. Civilization isolation. We also have then 23 reserved forrests. then finally several national parks where people can do some damage and can visit to have glimpse of forest life.

Forest cover is increasing in India now. Read this.

http://www.reason.org/commentaries/dealessi_20020924.shtml

I spent several days reading what www.co2science.com had to say. There is a truck load of data and reports that would take years to read. One interesting point was that if the earth is getting warmer, co2 is NEEDED to accelerate plant growth and to lower the draught tolerance of plants. They (and many others) actually have done thousands of controled experiments with plants of many varieties and the common finding it that co2 has near zero effect or contribution to warming because of the natural feedback loops from many sources, known and unknown. They do science. Al Gore and the government supported (key to their bias) computer mafia do not.

As an enginer myself one knows that a computer model that does not match reality, or at least past experience, is hardly a model to base a career on. One gets fired for such junk, but not in Al Gore's world of fear and scarcity.

The real concern is that if the planet is warming, co2 needs to increase, not decrease. Nature does this automatically to counter variations of heating. The data (found on co2science.com) shows an optimum of 1200 ppm co2 concentrations where plant benefit (on average) starts to taper. The dinosaurs had 2500-5700 ppm, according to some data. The north pole was open waters while Canada was under 4000 ft of ice. How? There are several articles on goethermal heat sources causing local heating that would account for this. We call those deep underwater volcanos. They are all over the earth, yet only a few years ago they were first understood. They drive our weather, and ironically "scientists" are just realizing these facts. Above all, it is clear that the temperature data matches solar variations and co2 has positive and negative correlations and therefore not a true cause. Correlation is NOT causation, as any engineer or scientist knows this.

My suggestion: read co2science.com Take the time out, get the facts, and see the truth.

Likewise the polar shift affects local atmospheres.

The normal declination of magnetic north is a part of every map reading course and certainly important for civil engineering and local land surveying. No one can deny the physical predictable routine shift of magnetic north. Then why is the polar shift so extremely difficult to acknowledge or fully comprehind? Perhaps the education system is to blame. Al Gore certainly does not desire to comprehend or acknowledge that polar shift affects local weather patterns in a global manner.

The earth is dynamic often with catastrophic results. Tornados, Volcano action, thermals, magnetic shift, polar drift, particulate drift, condensation giveth and evaporation taketh away in a rather predictable and consistent manner. Ignorant politicians blame global warming because they have all the answers to questions that never were asked and no answers with real time resolutions.

Big oil will drop the price of petro to destroy the 200 new ethanol and methanol refineries. Ratchet down in prices never goes as low as before. Ratchet up in prices never stops where it stopped before because the ratchet down destroyed competition that never returned in time.

Solid whole kernel shelled local renewable corn does not depend on refineries. Renewable in 4 months local grown corn can respond in a timely manner. Unfortunately, soybeans can only produce 35-50 bu per acre with price swings from $3 to $12 within a month or two. Corn responds faster with a possible production easily controlled from 30 to 300 bu per acre annually. Corn maize has an amaizingly fast response time. Petro takes 12 month to ship and 1 gallon used to ship each gallon used. One kernel of corn can produce up to four ears with 18 rows of 100 or more kernels per ear. Ah Shucks! No energy cost less than corn or is more stable in price over 200 years recorded history.

Cost effective environmentally acceptable effluent friendly energy solutions thrive but one must keep an ear to the ground or get hit by the next political train.

HOLA jmueller: Thanks for replying my comment on global warming, with a master piece of information supporting your sound green house effect, but detracting the real impact -too- of waisted heat effect acumulated from the same petroburning or petromania.

From other commenter -Masu- It calls my attention where he calculates, that an AREA roughly 390 km by 390 km of electro-solar panels should be installed "at a catastrofic cost" to catch enough solar energy to convert it into electricity -due to present low 25% efficiency of such technology-

However -do to present climates unbalance- I guess that catastrofes -happening every day around world- all ready are closing what he preffers not to expend in electro-solar panels technology for homes and industry, to stop using and paying the power from present thermoelectrical plants -that work with petrofuels at a similar efficiency-

I hi-lighted the word AREA, because it recalls me -besides- another fact influencing global warming -not taken in account usually, except in my research report- and It is the widespread roads and streets paving -over a millon of Km2 with BITUMEN- a black charcoal wich acts like a real heater -by catching 5Kw/m2/day of IR solar energy-adding overwarming in towns air too -as much as +5ºC at noon- and should be prohibited world wide too -as well as the exposed bitumen coats to protect roofs from wetting-. Such surfacings must be clear -white on paving and aluminized on roofs-

If you think it is pinuts, too, please step nude on it to confirm that your egg breakfast can be cooked too; or open you car-window -right above such black carpeting- while wait for the green light, then you tell me.

Belive it or not, that is another forgoten FACT on global warming debates.

But at the very end, we engineers all believe that it is due to burning huge amounts of petrofuels -nat-gas and carbon- instead of using petroleum just to make value added petroquemicals and polymers but not to burn it. It will last no longer.

Do`nt blame the sun for such hipotetic green house effect -which have been there forever- it is unharmfull. and sun energy realy is our salvation for XXI century. We do not have the button control to put the sun off -or tune it accordingly- however we do have the button to put our gas water heater off as well as our gasoline car, our gas range, our cloth drier, our gas barbecue, and so on, and replace them with a solar or electric counterparts.

He, he, he,,,,, it looks like a fiction movie, but we must do that sunner than later. America`s empire will fall if it keeps petrolized.

I hope we all together do some thing in our favor, to spread this all over, and to convince our friends our politicians and Presidents to make an stop, rethink what is wrong, and correct it rapidly and stop burnig fuels.

We engineers must leave debates behind, and instead of doing just warnings, it is time to act contributing with feasible projects to stop global overwarming.

My contribution: I designed a proben 220Lts solar water heater (pend.pat), that mass produced could be on sale around US$300 -to replace gas boilers, but at similar prices to reach popular homes too-

Saludos. Cheers.

jm jimenez, Senior Chem. Eng, MS from UMass.

zapopan, jal, mexico.

from: jm_jimenez@prodigy.net.mx To: vice_president@whitehouse.gov Cc: comments@whitehouse.gov Sent: Monday, September 03, 2007 12:09 AM Subject: Mr CHENEY be aware of CLIMATE CHANGE TRUE FACTS GLOBAL WARMING DUE TO GREEN HOUSE EFFECT IT IS A TRICKY SENTENCE THAT PETRO-MEN WANT US TO BELIVE IN, TO CONFUSE EVERY BODY

- IT IS A CRAISY IDEA to send CO2 to space by a pipe, or to make the seas like soda -bubbling CO2 into them- or to send satelite MIRRORS to BLIND AND REDUCE incoming solar energy, every thing to avoid climate change -due to a mitic green house effect-....

Man, Sun has never been harmfull to Earth....... Sun Radiation is in a perfect Thermal Equilibrium with Earth ever since.... by mileniums............ we Humans are the danger to the planet.

REAL CAUSES of global warming:

Real causes are down here, where HUGE amounts of waisted heat from more than 6 billions tons of hot gases -per year- are generated while burning fuels -from our motor vehicles, water heaters, boilers, thermoelectric generators, driers, ranges, ovens, etc-. We dont have to be scientist to understand a math equation, which evidence that the problem results from the extra added heat -we humans put in to atmosphere-:

IR sun energy + extra waisted heat from burning fuels = atmosphere overheating

= more evaporation = denser clouds = flooding storms = polar deice = actual kaoz

- Do you know what happens now that petroleum XX century is gone ......very simple.....the depleted AND EXPENSIVE petroleum will go down to 1 dollar per barrel and petroleum industry will crack....... once in XXI century we replace all fuels-WITH CLEAN NATURAL SOLAR ENERGY?- that is free, so peaple can save money to buy many thing else -as a an electric car -and so on----- politically impossible?....IT SEEM LIKE FICTION MOVIE….....but remember that sun is not a problem -it is the solution-

TWO SOLUTIONS:

1. Urge to replace all combustion devices, equipments and engines -WITH SOLAR AND ELECTRIC POWERED ONES-.

2. As well as urgent is to reforest the world with billions of trees – they are magic factories that will clean air from CO2, by:

Sucking CO2 + Absorbing solar UV and solar heat = to return us pure and fresh OXIGEN -instead-

Trees never heat the air -so- the craisy green house effect does not happen -that's a lie-

As PETRO-dependants, We are cooking our selve's in this global pot, due to a PETRO-effect.

HOW YOU CAN HELP? :

- I urge any body who has responsability of enviromental care and have funds -you must support any projects where products (vehicles or equipments) pursue this change over -to a new solar and electric eco-culture-.

-I urge Presidents all -to issue compulsory regulations to stop using any apparatus, device or engines where combustion of fuels take place -of any hidrocarbons (liquid or gas) alcohols, biofuels, carbons or hidrogen too- because all react exothermicaly generating the hot gases that over-heat the air -depleting oxigen O2 and ozone O3 as well while they burn to CO2 -which ixcess is getting a letal concentration level, too-.

- Now, I hope you understand it better -the real global warming problem- & communicate it to all your friends -what is going on- to become more that GREEN peaple -but co-responsible ECOLOGY ORIENTE PEAPLE- don't relay on heaven help, only. PLEASE STOP BURNIG FUELS.

jm jimenez, Senior Chem. Eng, MS from UMass,

Zapopan, jal. Mexico