Iron fertilization experiment

Yeah, now if only somebody would do something with it!

 

There have been several similar experiment but this appears to be the largest. The linked media article suggests the possibility of creating anoxia in deep waters, which would certainly displease any fish there. No matter for the marine mammals; they come topside for air.

It is not difficult to measure oxygen concentration at depth using the CTD gadgets. I would hope that this is done in future such experiments.

 

I imagine there should have been a bloom off Japan after the Tohoku tsunami (or other tsunamis) because a lot of terrestrial stuff gets washed out. Including some soluble iron presumably. Has anyone seen satellite evidence of that?

 

You see a lot of objections because this is deliberate geoengineering. The story goes, "oh, we might do harm" if we do iron fertilization.

My response is: We are already doing geoengineering. By dumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

We can look at the paleo record and see the ultimate outcome of that, absent any change. More-or-less 95% of what lives in the ocean dies. That's the record of the last three such events when Mother Nature dumped this much carbon into the atmosphere. E.g.
Ocean Acidification to Hit 300-Million-Year Max | Wired Science | Wired.com

So, the options aren't "the oceans as we have known them" versus "geoengineering", the real options are, do nothing and watch almost all ocean life die this century, versus, try something.

So I'm firmly with bwilson4web.

If I ran the world, here's how it would go.

1) We aren't going to get people to use less fossil fuels. At least not soon enough, and in great enough quantity, to avoid disaster.

2) So let's have a realistic plan. Conservation, sure. But:

3) I'd tax carbon at some ludicrously low rate, such that you'd look like an idiot objecting. Let's say a rate that adds 1 cent to a gallon of gas, or equivalent. Gonna stake your political future on objecting to a friggin' penny a gallon, when most Americans acknowledge that global warming is a threat?

4) The US consumes like 140B gallons of gasoline a year. 2010 Gasoline Consumption | American Fuels So that's $1.4B from gasoline. To which we can guesstimate revenues from coal, nat gas, etc. Round numbers, we've now got $5B/year. That's billion, with a B, from a 0.01 cent per-gasoline-gallon-equivalent tax.

5) We're looking to sequester (drawn down) carbon in the atmosphere. We admit that we can't keep people from putting it there (conservation). All we want to do is a) figure out a way to get rid of the garbage (remove carbon from the atomosphere) and 2) eventually tax carbon-based fuels for the cost of getting rid of that CO2 byproduct. It's a standard disposal fee, nothing more. Not all that different from the cost of hauling off your garbage. All we are looking for at this point is the cheapest way to dispose of atomospheric carbon.

6) So split that $5B three ways: One to the national labs, one to traditional (e.g.) DOE grant processes, and one to an X-prize equivalent. And whichever one can demonstrate significant carbon sequestration out of the atmosphere, at least cost, they get the money.

6b) That then defines the cost of carbon disposal. Using best available tech. And we'll get all the big money cheering them on, because

7) As of some date certain -- let's say, as of Jan 1 2020 .. then that least cost becomes what we need to charge as our carbon disposal fee. Tax fossil fuels at a rate that pays for it. Implement it based on the resulting revenues. All we're doing is paying to get rid of the waste stream, just as we do with any other waste.

8) And problem solved. If the resulting tax rate then favors renewables, so be it. But we're not picking winners via subsidy, we're just taxing the thing we need to get rid of, and using the payments to do so.

9) Tariff barriers for those who don't follow our lead.

10) Admittedly, the weak point here is finding any reasonably cheap way to draw down atomospheric carbon. The OP is about ocean fertilization. I've read about ways to grind up and distribute certain minerals on land. But, basically, until the numbers are firmly on the table, the idea of atmospheric drawdown is little more than a pipe dream.

11) That said, I'm just totally unable to accept "you might harm ocean ecology" as a reason to stop such experiments. The endpoint appears to be that almost everything in the ocean dies. That suggests some significant leeway in looking for alternatives.

12) But I hope you get the drift. Admit that this is a problem. Admit that we need to solve it. Do our damnedest to solve it at least cost. As of some point, say, that's the cheapest way we can see to solve this. And implement that.

 

There is much appeal in the proposal as stated. If we increase the 'fossil C fee' to 5 cents instead of 1, there might be potential for separate prizes for:

carbon sequestration (terrestrial and marine separately)
energy efficiency for buildings, transportation, power generation and transmission

or some other combination of clear goals.

In effect, you are directly rewarding people for doing research based on the presumption of harmful effects caused by CO2, and people already object to that, so there will be objections (along the usual lines) that all of it is just going to make Al Gore rich. Probably that had occurred to you.

I'd hope it not too off-topic to suggest other targets; to increase the water efficiency for thermal power generation. That already looks like an impending issue after (US) droughty 2012. To increase agricultural water-use efficiency? To increase (maintain) agricultural yield from the crops at anticipated higher temperatures?

Unfortunately, I can think of many such ways to spend Chogan2's penny, or nickel. Pumping aerosols into the atmosphere to stimulate cloud formation is not among them, nor earth-orbiting solar reflectors. Neither one touches marine acidification. The second one puts very large things in the path of orbital debris that is already up there and causing headaches for current orbital operations. Solar reflectors would be so much larger and less maneuverable targets!

Norway is now self-taxing, and spending the money on tropical reforestation. Australia is self-taxing on carbon emissions, and redistributing the revenue internally (I think). Neither one of them is trying to hit a technological home run, which sets this idea apart.

In this world where burning fossil C generates so many obvious short-term benefits, the first step (admit that this is a problem) would be a big one. Chogan2 does not shrink from it. I like that in a blogger

 

I certainly am not opposed to geo engineering, but lets get rid of some of the nonsense here.

No serious marine biologist believes that if we do business as usual with ghg, that all ocean life will die. Some of the geo engineering options may cause more extinctions not less. We can't simply dump iron in the ocean and think we are helping it. It will reduce ghg, but it may kill many more marine species than would happen otherwise. Small closely monitored experiments are needed.

Past "experiments" to help nature by adding preditors or food have often led to great ecological problems. This attempt may cause great harm to the marine ecosystem. We already know that heat causes large problems to reefs, but they are also hurt by pollution and some over growth of speices like starfish that destroy them. If we want to help heal the oceans, reductions of pollution and over fishing will go a great deal further than iron.

That bloom was much too large to ignore unintended consequences. Perhaps we can use smaller measures to help restore salmon, and closely monitor what this experiment did to the rest of the ocean.

 

Ocean-fertilization project off Canada sparks furore : Nature News & Comment

So how is disney monitoring the experiment?

He is not.

There is not much defending this project.

 

First it is not a small amount of material, it is 5x more than has been done in any controlled experiment. Everyone knows if you dump stuff in the ocean whether it is sewage or oil there is a significant response. Key is doing a before analysis and an after analysis. The corporation that dumped this material in the ocean for profit lied to Canadian and US officials, and have not shared their data. It is likely we will not know the initial conditions. Canadian and US scientists will study the effects but will have to make some serious guess work, and according to the nature article most results will not be known for at least 2 years.

Certainly the null response should always be considered in any objective scientific analysis. Let's not do something really bad in response to a percieved threat. The some recent examples of well meaning group doing something is carb forcing all the gas stations to use mbte to reduce air pollution. The result was wide spread water pollution and a large clean up effort was needed. We should not be happy to see a private corporation dump stuff in the ocean in an unscientific way, and claim victory. IMHO Disney is a corporate polluter even if the experiment works out.

I am all for doing small scale geo engineering experiments as long as they actually are done in a scientific manner.

 

Yes, it has to do with the salmon, I was using this sited nature article as a source
Ocean-fertilization project off Canada sparks furore : Nature News & Comment

Then the other references

Which references these
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7407/full/nature11229.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v407/n6805/full/407695a0.html

I 100% agree with you that this and other methods should be studied. Until the studies are conducted, I really dislike some idiot creating an experiment on 10,000 square kilometers of ocean, especially when canadian athorities were not properly informed of the purpose of this money making scheme. Like the BP oil spill though we will learn something about the oceans response in a couple of years.

The bloom this big can greatly change which marine animals thrive and which ones die. 10,000 square kilometers is a huge kill zone. We unfortunately have another dead zone in the gulf from farming activity. I would like that experiment to end also.

 

Ocean Acidification to Hit 300-Million-Year Max | Wired Science | Wired.com

"Finally, we come the big one—The Great Dying. The Permian-Triassic mass extinction (about 252 million years ago) wiped out around 96 percent of marine species. Still, the rate of CO2 released to the atmosphere that drove the dangerous climate change was 10-100 times slower than current emissions.

In the end, the researchers conclude that the PETM, Triassic-Jurassic boundary, and Permian-Triassic boundary are the closest analogs to the modern day, at least as far as acidification is concerned. Due to the poor ocean chemistry data for the latter two, the PETM is the best event for us to compare current conditions. It’s still not perfect—the rate of CO2 increase was slower than today."

Or :

An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

Whose actual title is: End-Permian Mass Extinction in the Oceans: An Ancient Analog for the Twenty-First Century?

Or maybe:

Climate simulations of the Permian-Triassic boundary: Ocean acidification and the extinction event

Or Google it, there's no shortage of research suggesting the same thing. I couldn't say where all serious marine biologists stand on this, but there appear to have been plenty of other scientists who've pointed this out.

So, maybe it'll be no worse than the PETM. That makes 95% extinction rate a good guess. On the other hand, the rate of release of CO2 into the atmosphere now is, as noted in the first citation, not merely faster than those prior events, it's order-to-orders of magnitude faster. Slower release was associated with adaptation and lower rates of extinction, suggesting that more rapid release ought to be associated with the opposite. But ocean chemistry differs from those historical events, as do fauna. So, some uncertainty. But all in all, I'd say 95% is a reasonable guess.

 

Well it is hotter today then when Japan bombed pearl harbor. Does that mean it is likely that Japan is going to bomb pearl harbor again. CO2 levels during the PT boundry also is not the causation of mass extinctions. There are also time factors. When you do a correlation without causation, then talk about an alarmist extinction rate, you should talk to the type of scientists that actually study those animals claimed to be getting killed. Otherwise it is about as valid as creationism.

Why is 95% a good guess. It sounds like a number pulled out of someones nice person that is clueless. How about providing a number from someone that actually has done at least 1 research paper. I have worked as part of a team on numerous research on climate change and extinction events, and none of the professors I worked with would ever do single factor analysis. Its a logical falacy to simply say A is correleated with B, A<C therefore C->B. Which sea creatures will die if ph falls? What depth will it fall? Are these equal to 95%? None of this knee jerk alarmism has tried to use those factors. The scholarly papers say something completely different.

 

Golly.

I cited several different scientists who liken what's going to happen under business-as-usual to the PETM. I mean, that's the entire gist of the article cited by item 12 in this PriusChat thread:

Ocean Acidification to Hit 300 Million Year Max | PriusChat

The 95% is the number typically cited for marine species that went extinct in the PETM. Acceptable values range as low as 90%.

So, on the current path of business-as-usual, some scientists say we're headed for a PETM-like event. Except that this is happening 10x as fast.

But you think I should believe some naive sophistry instead? Some bizarre comparison to Pearl Harbor, that's the reason I should ignore the scholarly literature on this topic? Sorry, but no. I'm a scientist. I flag casuistry for what it is, and I focus on the facts.

Let me simplify the research. Look at the cite from my original posting. Three times in the last 300M years, Nature has dumped >~2000 Gtons C into the atmosphere in a relatively short time period.. Each time, the same things happened. The earth warmed by ~ 6C. The oceans acidified and most species within died. And these conditions lasted some 10's of K of years.

So it's almost a no-brainer, at this point, to predict the outcome of business-as-usual. We are on the path to creating the 4th such event, in terms of total C dumped into the atmosphere. But we're doing this 10 to 100x as fast as the past three. There's little doubt as to the outcomes, in a broad-brush sense, based on what happened the last three times. The earth will warm by maybe 6C. The oceans will acidify and and most species within will die. And these conditions will last some 10's of K of years. Again.

My comments aren't some speculation based on confusing correlation with causation. I'm just paying attention to the best available science. I respectfully suggest that you do the same. And that the same time, words like "nonsense" and "nice person" may work well to squelch debate for an academic, but they fall short in the real world. If you want to convince me you're right, stop the name-calling, drop the condescending attitude, and try presenting some cogent facts.

 

On a different note, Tochatihu, I recall that your main scientific mission regards decomposition of cellulose by fungi. That we wouldn't have coal seams, if ancient fungi had been as efficient as modern fungi at attacking cellulose. That there will never be another Carboniferous era -- that was a once-off. If I had to think of an area where sequestration of this magnitude might take place, that would be it. So my question is, any likelihood of a breakthrough there, in significantly reducing the conversion of woody material to CO2? Ignoring any potential side-effects, does there appear to be any way to do that?

 

And you may note all scholarly work says that this does not mean we should expect the level of extinction at the PT boundary. None of the papers referenced say 95% extinction has any statistically significant likelyhood under the current scenario. The PT boundary was about more than CO2, as anyone can tell you.

They most surely are the worst unscientific speculation.

How many species are there? How many are sensitive to CO2? How many are likely to go extinct. You have shown no work, only hand waving like we should avoid talk of asteroids and oxygen, because gee we want to jump to a bad conclusion based on nonsense.
Evolution: Library: Permian-Triassic Extinction

Do you have any evidence or even a theory on how the current CO2 will cause such an extinction? I'm sorry for being a little brutal here, but yes that 95% extincion for current conditions is pulled straight from someones nice person with no scientific understanding of the PT extinction or current climate change. Stop pretending there is any evidence at all to back it up. Initial conditions are completely different. Source of climate change is completely different.

I would expect if a large asteroid were to hit the earth there would again be a mass extinction. That asteroid seems the most likely cause of the extinction today, creating a chain of events decreasing oxygen levels. Pretending the PT extinction was 100% based on CO2 conditions that we are replicating is somewhat offensive to me as a scientific idea. It holds the same sway in my mind as Jesus hid dinosaur bones to test our faih. Both have no scientific justification.

 

Of course, your crudeness is justified. Sure. Because when you disagree with someone, you and you alone are being faithful to Science.

Consider the alternative -- you aren't seeing the forest through the trees, so you choose to quibble. Nastily.

Three historical CO2 releases, three warming events, three ocean acidifications, three ocean extinction events. We're heading into a fourth such event now, only 10x faster than the fastest prior event. I claim it's a no-brainer that we're headed for a fourth such extinction event, but in that, I merely paraphrase one of the lead authors of the study cited originally. Plus a few bits of other scholarly work that get at the mechanism. That's the forest. I picked a number at the upper bound of past extinction estimates, based on the greater speed of this event. If you want to quibble with the accuracy of that tree, fine.

A more useful question would be, at what extinction rate does the underlying argument fail to hold? If business as usual leads to (say) a projected 70% extinction rate, does that materially change the rationale for what I proposed? Or, if we just lose most of the fauna with calcium-based shells, is that better or worse than doing what I proposed.

Recall that my proposal isn't to fertilize the ocean, it's to fund research to find the most cost-effective way to drawn down atmospheric carbon. But to do that properly, decisions need to be done under a realistic decisionmaking-under-uncertainty framework.

So, back to my post, waay up there. For what projected outcome is it not worth funding such research? And at what projected change in the ocean is there nothing in terms of material harm from inaction, to balance against the potential harm from ocean fertilization?

That, I think, is what is missing from the debate over ocean fertilization, and what would have to be included in the scheme I outlined. The choice isn't between the oceans as we know them now, via inaction, and some alternative. The realistic choice is between our best projection of what will occur under inaction, versus action. So, fill-in-your-best-guess-here, under inaction, and compare that with the likely harm from ocean fertilization. With all due consideration for uncertainty, and possible including discount rates.

That's the bit of forest that appears missing from discussions of ocean fertilization, and geoengineering in general.

So, back over to you. You don't like my estimate or reasoning, great. One would expect reasonable disagreement. But if decisions are going to be made -- for inaction or action -- there needs to be some estimate on the table. So, some simple questions.

Based on the best available data, is the projected increase in CO2 likely to lead to a material increase in extinction of ocean species? I'd say that's a yes. Certainly for calcium-bodied creatures. Plenty of evidence showing what the underlying biological mechanism is there. Possibly for others.

Is there plausibly the potential for very high rates of extinction? Not certainty, but is there any evidence to suggest that such a black swan event is possible? Again, I'd say yes. The literature says that you see more adaptation and less extinction with slower changes. Very common-sense. But the current event is proceeding 10x to 100x faster than the last three. Under those circumstances, I'd say that a reasoned discussion should not rule it out. At least until there is firm evidence to the contrary.

Conversely, at what level are the projected changes in the ocean, from CO2 increase and warming, small enough that they are properly ignored in discussions of geoengineering? At what level can we properly say that comparing the oceans now, to projected effects of ocean fertilzation, is an adequate approximation of the true choice that we're facing?

For me, it's pretty simple. We have a number of well-informed scientists who are telling us that, as far as the oceans are concerned, it looks like we're on course for a PETM-like event. The first-stage biological mechanism is well understood for organisms with calcium-based shells. Acidification reduces the efficiency with which they can extract minerals from sea water. So for that class of animals, at least, this isn't reasoning-by-analogy, it's just biochemistry. Then, the mechanism for adaptation instead of extinction depends on slow changes, which is just the reverse of what we're going to see. If people don't think all of that is cause for concern, possibly even "alarm", then I say we're sleepwalking into the future.

Boil it down: Scientists say, warning, possible PETM-like event in the oceans. You say, no biggie. I'll go with the scientists on this one.

 

It is there so that maybe you will think. hmm. What am I missing? Why can't I take an ignorant slice and make up a high number and think its right without any work. The work I have done on changes in habitat, evolution, and extinction, looked a lot at loss of habitat as a main driver for species extinction. If you shrink a habitat, and don't have climate change, you still have extinction. If you change a habitat some species will do better, and others will do worse.

If you want to do no work, at least read from those attempting to analyze the problem. Dumping iron into the ocean will greatly change the oxygen concentration and may cause many more species to die than increases in carbonic acid in the waters. It is not a simple question, and by oversimplifying it you have closed your ears to answers.

You are demonstrating a lack of understanding and an unwillingness to learn. I am not quibbling. Please try to learn something instead of spreading misinformation.

We don't get to decide apriori that doing A to reduce extinction leads to less extinction. Certainly the diverse habitats on the reefs are the first things that may go from climate change. We have found heat resistant corals in other parts of the ocean. If its saving species do we transplant them. Acidity alone does not seem to be a large driver of lack of spiecies diversity. Read up on the great barrier reef destruction. Pollution dumped in the water changes the speicies. Starfish populations explode - may be natural may be partially man made - and disolve the reef. Half is destroyed. Reefs can sometimes recover.

I said in my post that we should closely study possible geo-engineering proposals. We do know though that water pollution and over fishing are much greater drivers of extinction in the oceans. When we forget that we close off the likely best solutions.

This "experiment", was not a controlled experiment, it was a corporate money making exercise. Let's agree that we should at least do these geo-engineering tests in a scientific way. We shouldn't simply dump stuff in the ocean, see a bloom, and declare pay me, I've created life as disney has done here. At least read the nature articles I posted.

The disagreement was not about funding research. I disagree with a guy lieing to the canadian government, not properely studying what he was doing, and claiming it is scientific research. Again we may learn things, and we may learn things from the bp oil spill. Most of this geo-engineering to reduce ghg is being done inspite of the fact it may cause more extinctions because ghg are feared to be a bigger problem. Let's at least study what they do to the ecosystem.

 

Chogan2@16, thanks for asking, and thus sparing me from any need to summarize science or speculate about the oceans. I am poorly equipped there.

First, wood is cellulose + lignin. Cellulose is a bunch of sugars strung together. A vast number of microbes can decompose it with conventional enzymes. Many animals host internal populations of such microbes, cows and termites among them. Humans, not.

Lignin is a whole 'nother thing. It is a disordered polymer. No enzymes are known that can latch onto it (in the conventional way) and nip off a piece. Instead, a relatively few fungi perform what has become named the Fenton reaction. The enzyme product is hydroxyl radicals, that wander off and sometimes (accidentally) cleave lignin into suitable pieces. All of this happens outside the cells; it is nearly suicidal to produce hydroxyl radicals "indoors".

Land plants were pitiful 30-cm things when first made of cellulose. About 350 million y ago, they added lignin to the mix and have never looked back. Thirty meters became easy, and 100 m just required getting the plumbing right so that liquid water could be dragged to the top where it's required for photosynthesis.

So then, massive trees grew (not the ones we have now), died, and surrendered to gravity. Big blobs of lignocellulose that the microbes could not decompose. For something like 50 million years! This allowed the formation of most coal, and (by proxies) vastly reduced atmospheric CO2. Followed by cooling and glaciation, because even then, CO2 absorbed infrared light

That the lack of lignin decomposition allowed all that was hypothesized by Robinson in 1990. It was strongly supported by molecular clocks (Floudas' Science paper in 2012); a joyous event for me.

Currently, we (few) examine wood decomposition and find that some bits go fast and others 100 times slower. This does not follow any obvious chemical or environmental factors, suggesting that the microbial communities must differ. In November we will use 454 pyrosequencing to look into that. Very exciting.

Already we have used the slow (and fast)- decomposing wood to inoculate new wood pieces. Inoculating new fungi into wood has been used since 1930s to grow commercial mushrooms; it is not new. New is to transfer microbial community function. The question is whether wood decomposition can be slowed, at what effort, and with what consequences? You will perhaps forgive me from omitting much technical detail here.

Globally, dead wood does decompose and it returns about 7 petagrams C (as CO2) to the atmosphere, part of the biological C cycle. This can be compared to 9-10 petagrams C of fossil C being burned. What the fungi missed 350 million years ago, the coal/energy facilities are now nibbling.

Slowing dead-wood decomposition by (locally) manipulating fungi looks like a big task. But perhaps not bigger than other petagram-scale efforts that have already been proposed; afforestation, biochar and modified agriculture. Eventually I might accept Chogan2's nickle to try, but today I'd refuse it with thanks. We'll first need to complete the work at the first site and then repeat it elsewhere.

I envision forests with more dead wood lying about than generally seen today, because it would be decomposing more slowly. This rubble is home to more animal species than you might imagine, which also looks positive. In some forests it might promote fires (little is actually known about that) and if so, we'd not want to change things there.

Back before agriculture halved global forests, they were unlike most forests we walk in today. Among other things, they had a lot more dead wood lying about. I can "prove" that with models, but y'all know that carbon models are just things that lefty scientists use to hobble the fossil-C burn industry. Better if we could identify a path that maximizes economic growth and minimizes human&environmental harm. I suppose that wood-decomposition manipulation could be a small component of that path. Will let you know later.

With so many things we might do, the money question arises. Chogan2 made a modest proposal in re. Here again I have veered entirely away from the marine-iron-fertilization original topic.