Biggest Natural Iron Seeding Event To Date Produced Big Bloom, Tiny Carbon Uptake

[hatrack]

It's long been suggested that adding iron particles to sea water would increase the amount of phytoplankton - free-floating, single-celled plants that form the base of the marine food chain. As phytoplankton take up carbon dioxide to grow, geoengineers have suggested that seeding key regions of the ocean with iron could be one way of offsetting increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

But a Canada-US team led by University of Victoria oceanographer Dr Roberta Hamme says that data from the 2008 eruption of the Kasatochi volcano in the Aleutian Islands indicates that this might not be as effective as hoped.

The volcano spewed a quarter of a cubic kilometer of iron-laden ash over a 1,000-kilometer swath of the North Pacific. This created what Hamme calls "an ocean productivity event of unprecedented magnitude" - the largest phytoplankton bloom detected in the region since ocean surface measurements by satellite began in 1997.

But although the volcanic ash fueled such a massive phytoplankton bloom, it resulted in only a modest uptake of atmospheric CO2, says Hamme. It's believed to have caused an uptake of just 0.01 petagrams of carbon - literally, a drop in the ocean compared with the estimated 6.5 petagrams released every year by the consumption of fossil fuels.

EDIT

http://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/51886-ocean-seeding-wouldnt-halt-climate-change-says-team

[Nihil]

1. Hopefully this will shut up that particular bunch of morons ...

... i.e., the "technology will save us so carry on with Business As Usual"
ones who are in favour of polluting the oceans more, simply to generate profit.

:grr:

[Chulanowa]

2. The problem with the whole idea is very simple

The organisms convert the carbon they absorb into biomass (as do all plants; see that big tree in the yard? Most of what makes it was pulled out of the air.) When those organisms die, their bodies decay, which releases the CO2

Unlike that big tree in your yard, unicellular organisms live a matter of days at best, sequester a tiny, tiny amount of carbon, and then decompose very rapidly when they die.

The only carbon that they will lock away for good is the carbon used to form the shells of some of them, such as diatoms and other chalk-shelled organisms.

Ultimately all we would be doing is creating blooms that do us no good and likely only mess things up further ecologically

[Kolesar]

3. It can take 500 years for a tree in the Olympic rain forest to decay*

That would be for a very big tree, like a 200 foot tall Sitka Spruce. Trees could be used to buy time.

*or so the NPS naturalist told me.

[Chulanowa]

4. For it to decay completely, yeah

The place is littered with tree skeletons (the heartwood core), stumps and old roots, and all sorts of other ancient leftovers. I dunno about 500 years, though for cedars and such I wouldn't be surprised.

The trick with tree planting is to make sure you're doing it right. I can think of a few stories where treeing actually caused more harm than leaving the place alone.

[OnlinePoker]

7. In an old growth forest, wouldn't carbon uptake be neutral?

I would think that the growth of new trees (sequestering carbon) would be offset by rotting trees (releasing carbon) and so there would be a stasis. If this is the case, wouldn't it then be better to log and replant old growth forests or just log trees in OGF which have reached maturity rather then recut second or third growth forests?

[jpak]

8. Not true - old growth forests are carbon sinks and logging them releases CO2

Effects on carbon storage of conversion of old-growth forests to young forests.

Harmon ME, Ferrell WK, Franklin JF.

Science. 1990 Feb 9;247(4943):699-702.

Simulations of carbon storage suggest that conversion of old-growth forests to young fast-growing forests will not decrease atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO(2)) in general, as has been suggested recently. During simulated timber harvest, on-site carbon storage is reduced considerably and does not approach old-growth storage capacity for at least 200 years. Even when sequestration of carbon in wooden buildings is included in the models, timber harvest results in a net flux of CO(2) to the atmosphere. To offset this effect, the production of lumber and other long-term wood products, as well as the life-span of buildings, would have to increase markedly. Mass balance calculations indicate that the conversion of 5 x 10(9) to 1.8 x 10(9) megagrams of carbon to the atmosphere.

<<<<<

Old-growth forests as global carbon sinks

Nature 455, 213-215 (11 September 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature07276; Received 18 January 2008; Accepted 7 July 2008

Sebastiaan Luyssaert1,2, E. -Detlef Schulze3, Annett Börner3, Alexander Knohl4, Dominik Hessenmöller3, Beverly E. Law2, Philippe Ciais5 & John Grace6

Old-growth forests remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere1, 2 at rates that vary with climate and nitrogen deposition3. The sequestered carbon dioxide is stored in live woody tissues and slowly decomposing organic matter in litter and soil4. Old-growth forests therefore serve as a global carbon dioxide sink, but they are not protected by international treaties, because it is generally thought that ageing forests cease to accumulate carbon5, 6. Here we report a search of literature and databases for forest carbon-flux estimates. We find that in forests between 15 and 800 years of age, net ecosystem productivity (the net carbon balance of the forest including soils) is usually positive. Our results demonstrate that old-growth forests can continue to accumulate carbon, contrary to the long-standing view that they are carbon neutral. Over 30 per cent of the global forest area is unmanaged primary forest, and this area contains the remaining old-growth forests7. Half of the primary forests (6?×?108 hectares) are located in the boreal and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. On the basis of our analysis, these forests alone sequester about 1.3?±?0.5 gigatonnes of carbon per year. Thus, our findings suggest that 15 per cent of the global forest area, which is currently not considered when offsetting increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, provides at least 10 per cent of the global net ecosystem productivity8. Old-growth forests accumulate carbon for centuries and contain large quantities of it. We expect, however, that much of this carbon, even soil carbon9, will move back to the atmosphere if these forests are disturbed.

<<<<<

Dumbass western conservatives have tried to convince folks that clear-cutting old growth forests is "good for the environment" - but its nothing more than ignorant greenwash/bullshit

[jpak]

5. Bacteria respond rapidly to iron enrichment and quickly respire any newly produced organic matter

Something the Iron Mafia continues to ignore.

yup

[OnlinePoker]

6. It may not have helped CO2 much, but I would bet this is one of the reasons for the record salmon...

...returns this year. All that extra nutrients would have allowed a lot more to survive than has been the case recently.