Deep Sea News

BERLIN (AFP) — Indian and German scientists have said that a controversial experiment has “dampened hopes” that dumping hundreds of tonnes of dissolved iron in the Southern Ocean can lessen global warming. The experiment involved “fertilising” a 300-square-kilometre (115-sqare-mile) area of ocean inside the core of an eddy — an immense rotating column of water — with six tonnes of dissolved iron.

As expected, this stimulated growth of tiny planktonic algae or phytoplankton, which it was hoped would take out of the atmosphere carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas blamed for climate change, and absorb it. However, the scientists from India’s National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) and Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) did not count on these phytoplankton being eaten by tiny crustacean zooplankton.

“The cooperative project Lohafex has yielded new insights on how ocean ecosystems function,” an AWI statement published on Monday said.

“But it has dampened hopes on the potential of the Southern Ocean to sequester significant amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and thus mitigate global warming.”

[googlemap lat="-22.857194700969636" lng="-174.55078125" width="500px" height="300px" zoom="6" type="G_HYBRID_MAP"]Tonga[/googlemap]

News on the wire from Rick is that a tsunami warning was issued for the South Pacific after a 7.9 earthquake registered about 209km (130 miles) south-east of Tonga.  The first report from the U.S. National Weather Service’s Pacific tsunami center is that “Sea level readings confirm that a tsunami was generated. This tsunami may have been destructive along coastlines of the region near the earthquake epicenter.” However according to the BBC, “…there are no immediate reports of damage.”

UPDATE FROM THE USNWS PACIFIC TSUNAMI CENTER

... TSUNAMI WARNING CANCELLATION ...

THE TSUNAMI WARNING AND/OR WATCH ISSUED BY THE PACIFIC TSUNAMI
WARNING CENTER IS NOW CANCELLED FOR

 TONGA / NIUE / KERMADEC IS / AMERICAN SAMOA / SAMOA /
 WALLIS-FUTUNA / FIJI

It’s Friday, learn something. Concentrate on the soothing voice of the narrator. Relax. Breathe deeply. You are floating on a thermocline.

Southern Fried Science has the low-down on this rather hypnotic series of YouTube videos by Taichiro Sakagami explaining the El Niño-La Niña Southern Oscillation phenomenon. This is Part One of Four. Collect them all. At the sound of the bell, you will awaken.

The rise in temperature around you is not just melting the Polar Cap (Let’s here for the birth of the Northwest Passage!) but heating up political tension among the U.S., Iceland, Norway, Russia, Canada, and Denmark. Discover ranked the story of these nation carving up the Arctic like lonely frat boys on Saturday night tackling a case of beer and large pizza number 5 out of 100 for 2008.

Over the last two years Russia and Norway have filed for territorial expansions to the U.N. and its likely the other country will follow.  Russia planted a flag on the Artic floor less for scienetific exploration and more for a public proclmation of ownership.  Then Canada is boosting thier Arctic naval divisions possible including the construction of new base and production of new vessels.  Key members in the current administration have spouted off at the mouth about claims.  But its not just a shipping lane these countries are positioning for.  The loss of ice means easier access to fisheries and oil.  Thank god I can eat crappy fish sticks and drive my big SUV for another 5 years.  Global warming is not all bad!

The International Boundries Research Unit at Durham University has all the details including the fancy map above.

2100 tons of steel were put in the ocean 3 miles off Portugal yesterday.  Don’t worry this is a good thing.  Three steel snakes,  each over 450ft long, will slither on the surface.  The articulation of the four sections of each snake by the waves will be converted into power, enough currently for 1,000 homes.  Plans are to add 25 more to the area to generate up to 21MW of power.  The idea and construction comes from Pelamis, a British-owned company. 

Naturally, one of the favorite pastimes here in the Cone of Probability is to monitor as many websites as possible for different forecasts and projections of Hurricane Ike. The more the models stray away from Corpus Christi the less anxious you feel. Currently three models veer to the north before landfall, so CC has a small chance of escaping the storm.

The image above is from my favorite hurricane web interface so far, called Stormpulse. It’s full screen, and very interactive, almost like a video game. If you’re looking for in-depth analysis, grab a cup a’ joe and dig in to Jeff Masters WunderBlog. It’s a great resource from a PhD storm chaser. Jeff predicted a chain of atmospheric disturbances following Gustav two weeks ago. For Ike, he overlays the trajectory on maps of heat potential, which is very cool.

Corpus Christi is in the center of Hurricane Ike’s projected trajectory. He’s coming at us like a fastball over home plate. This is a bit scarier than being on the periphery of the strike zone. TAMU-CC started issuing updates yesterday. One scientific expedition is recalled.

If there’s anything good that came out of Katrina it’s better hurricane preparedness in the Gulf of Mexico. Should the storm bear down on us, we’ll shutter up the house, pack up the car, and head for hill country in Austin, TX. My wife can drive while I crunch data and the kids fall asleep in the back. Right. I wonder what happened to Kevin and his family?

Our expedition to the Twilight Zone is still on hold because of generator problems on the RV Nancy Foster. Now we’ve got Hurricane/Tropical Storm Gustav bearing down on us from the Caribbean. The storm is expected to enter the Gulf of Mexico Sunday morning. So, even if we made it out to the shelf break by Saturday morning, we would only have a day or two of survey. We’ll take it! When do we board?

But honestly, if it wasn’t for this thing with Discovery Channel, I would feel hexed. Gustav is far away in the Caribbean, but already causing heaps of trouble here in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil prices are projected to rise, platforms are being evacuated, and scientific expeditions are battening down the hatches. At least two expeditions in the Gulf of Mexico are expected to follow after ours.

To make things even worse… somehow and sometime recently, gas prices started fluctuating with the weather, so the cost of fuel for an expedition rises everytime a storm comes through, like we’re caught in a hideous feedback loop. Don’t forget the Gulf of Mexico is responsible for 25% of US oil production. We get an “A” for oil. But unfortunately, we get an “F” for fisheries management. There’s alot of work to do in that department.

UPDATE: The BATZ Expedition was canceled today at 11am. NOAA offices in Galveston are in a state of “hurricane preparedness”, bracing for Gustav. Note that NOAA ships were called upon for coastal damage assessment in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, so if the storm(s) proves damaging, more research time could be at jeopardy.

…and where it goes…how it got there..its trials and tribulations.

This week in carbon sequestration theater we explore Little Petey Carbon and (sing out loud) Ollll’ Mannnn Rrrriverrrr.

Rivers are major transporters of material to the oceans and on into the deep. Below are estimates from Schlunz and Schneider’s (2000) of just organic carbon flux (as opposed to total material). The numbers are fluxes in 10^12 g or 1,000,000 tons per year. That’s lot of carbon!

Certain events like typhoons can amplify the amount of sediment that is carried out to sea. New research appearing in Geology suggest that 61 million tons of sediment was carried out to sea by the Choshui River during Typhoon Mindulle, some 500,000 tons consisted of particles of carbon created during chemical weathering. For scale 500,000 tons is the weight of about 20 RMS Titanics. O’ yeah, I forgot to mention this all occurred over just 96 hours.

Another recent study occurring in PNAS, documents another method by which rivers aid in ocean carbon sequestration. In this first scenario carbon is actively transported to the seafloor. In the second, nutrients transported by river out sea enhance phytoplankton production. The recent study documents that the Amazon River plume supports N2 fixation far from the mouth, extending past even the continental shelf.

(more…)

We can’t joke around too much about this Hurricane Dolly, I’m afraid. The weather is not terrible here in Corpus, but conditions are rapidly deteriorating in Brownsville. We now have reports of tornado warnings in nearby counties, and confirmed power outages for more than 9000 people.

News reports are forecasting an incredible amount of rain (up to 15 inches). If i remember right, that would be the equivalent of a 5 foot snowstorm in the Northeast.

From the Associated Press:

Dolly, upgraded from a tropical storm Tuesday, had sustained winds of 95 mph, just short of becoming a Category 2 storm. At 9 a.m. EDT Wednesday, the storm’s center was about 40 miles east of Brownsville, moving northwest at about 8 mph.

A hurricane warning was in effect for the coast of Texas from Brownsville to Corpus Christi and in Mexico from Rio San Fernando northward.

Utility company AEP Texas reported power outages to more than 9,200 customers in Cameron County.