This weeks Science offers commentary on the use of Ocean Iron Fertilization (OIF) to mitigate rising carbon dioxide levels. The author list is a dream team of ocean productivity experts who know what they are talking about. The 1 page commentary is chock-o-block full of great quotes.
The efficacy by which OIF sequesters atmospheric CO2 to the deep sea remains poorly constrained, and we do not understand the intended and unintended biogeochemical and ecological impacts. Environmental perturbations from OIF are nonlocal and are spread over a large area by ocean circulation, which makes long- term verification and assessment very difficult
and
OIF could make only a partial contribution to mitigation of global CO increase.
The group lists 7 items that need to be included in future research on OIF. The ending paragraph simply states that selling carbon offsets from OIF experiments is premature and use of OIF will come with an “alteration of ocean ecosystems” with potentially unforseen consequences.
Buesseler et al. (2008) Ocean Iron Fertilization–Moving Forward in a Sea of Uncertainty. Science 319:162
DOI: 10.1126/science.1154305
The group lists 7 items that need to be included on future research on OIF. The ending paragraph simply states that selling carbon offsets from OIF experiments is premature and that use of OIF will come with a “alteration of ocean ecosystems” with potentially unforseen consequences.
I hope the research continues. It’s nice they are being cautious, but I have heard that when they make possible extrapolations the carbon sequestration could be highly significant!
Dave Briggs :~)
in case you missed it, planet doom? posted a piece about geo-engineering in the ocean (such as OIF) and the Law of Unintended Consequences a couple of months back.
the link above didn’t work. Here it is.
It remains an interesting subject of research, but I’m really glad that the proper attention is being paid to its drawbacks and limitations. Any increase in local ocean productivity will have all sorts of unintended consequences, and the article linked by Jim Lemire above makes a good case for caution. In addition to hydrogen sulfide production, there is the issue of the uptake and sequestration of limiting nutrients other than iron, such as phosphorus and silica. We still know so little about the biochemical effects of a bloom, and causing large blooms with thought only toward their effects on a single compound (CO2) is dangerous thinking. I hold out some hope for the method, but it should certainly continue to be addressed with caution. We have such a poor record of manipulations, and so many of them were done with the best of intentions.