Shame.
First it was a negation of even the possibility that this abruptly weather changings and warmings is man-made.
It is an natural Earth cycle, they said.
Than, when things became worry and costly the critical mass of researchers were made, and we learn that it is fueled by man-made activities (of many sorts), but be happy and not worry, because it would take a hundred year to have serious repercussions.
Short time further, after many "hit the wall" conferences, it became clear that the human society isn't able to draft an serious cut-off emissions and change agreement.
Now, we learn that the actual warming is an ireversible process which would stay a thousend year on.
So, there would be no escapes from us.
But that was not enaugh to make an real change now, to cut off, and implement non-pollution sun/... energy by changing the industrial/energy technology process.
Such techno-changings with more investing could purificate many emissions even from old energy sources.
In the same time when somebody yet negate the man-made influx to the global climate change, starts to pop up "scientific studies" which state that all this (mostly now globaly ireversible process) can be changed by some man-made activities of very low investing grade and factual changing:
"Continue to dump into the ocean, this time iron dust.
That would feed enaugh algae that they would absorb the most of the carbonium which influx to the warming.
And do it in the last relatively non poluted regions, as in Antarctic Ocean."
Boy, such study-makers obviously had not any output quality control of their conclusions.
Everybody who have to dealt with algae (toxic and not) know how messy became the water environment where they proliferate, and how oxigen sucking and sticky, became the layer where they overpopulate.
Every scholar know that the plancton is at the base of the whole marine food chain.
No plancton - no life.
What want to do these wrong-studies implementators - to destroy all marine life at the same time with no major efects on the global warming?
Even if that bio-tampering have a chance to do some esigue carbon sucking there, the weather and warming depends not only on CO2.
And finaly, no study makers have the right to push collateral damage and destroying of various life on Earth.
Look alone to the stories - "it is planning an iron sulphate fertilisation experiment off Antarctica in early 2009".
Read on some news and olds about:
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/s...hp/Berlin_mulls_ban_on_dropping_iron_in_ocean
Berlin mulls ban on dropping iron in ocean
Science Features
Jan 24, 2009, 15:38 GMT
Berlin - A controversial plan by Germany and India to drop six tons of iron dust into the Antarctic Ocean next week may be called off after a German government review.
The experiment is the biggest trial ever of iron fertilization, a technology which could stop global warming at very little cost.
Radical environmentalists oppose the idea. They say such a simple solution may encourage the world to burn more fossil fuel. They also argue that 'geo-engineering' might accidentally wreck ocean life.
The idea behind iron fertilization is simple. Algae living at the ocean surface have plenty of other nutrients but are starved of iron. Sprinkle iron dust on the water and they reproduce rapidly, absorbing carbon dioxide from the surface water.
At the end of their life cycle the algae die and sink. Most of the carbon ends up in deep water or on the sea bottom.
The ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide from the air, reducing the greenhouse effect. Sequestering carbon this way might stop global warming.
In the biggest experiment ever with the idea, 30 Indian scientists and 18 from other nations left Cape Town on January 7 with ferrous sulphate powder containing six tons of iron to broadcast on 300 square kilometres of ocean.
Their vessel, the Polarstern, was provided by the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) for Polar and Marine Research of Bremerhaven, Germany.
This month, Germany's Science Ministry, which funds AWI, ordered the plan suspended while it conducted an urgent review.
The government is scheduled to receive scientific reports from Ifremer, the French oceanography agency, and from the British Antarctic Survey on Monday next week, Folke Mehrtens of AWI said.
If the ministry then orders the experiment cancelled, the scientists will abandon the plan, AWI's director, Karin Lochte, confirmed in Berlin. 'We don't want to cause a political crisis,' she said.
As often happens in Germany, where anti-capitalist protest has a long tradition, critics are especially outraged that using the ocean as a carbon sink might benefit private interests. They see the 'evil' motive of profit as motivating the research.
One group, Aktionskonferenz Nordsee, said that the aim was to offer industry a cheap way to sequester carbon in the ocean.
While people India might not think there is anything wrong with finding a cheaper path to economic growth, AWI scientists are quick to deny economic benefits. They insist that the Polarstern trip is 'purely scientific,' not in the interests of business.
Indian scientists on the Polarstern add that governments need to know if the environmentalists' forebodings are justified.
'We need to understand better how iron affects the oceanic ecosystem,' Lochte explained.
She said that based on current science, AWI does not recommend fertilizing large expanses of ocean so as to sequester carbon, but believes a state agency, not a private one, needs to study the process.
'The rock dust in one large melting iceberg would increase the iron concentration by roughly the same amount,' Lochte said.
The experiment could answer questions about whether iron dust may have been a factor in causing ice ages and warm periods in the planet's history, and how iron impacts on phytoplankton and krill in the ocean food chain.
Scientists want to know how much carbon reaches the different layers of the ocean and whether it returns to the atmosphere.
AWI says there have so far been five smaller iron-dust experiments in the southern oceans, but never one as comprehensive as this.
The test, code-named Lohafex, has been under preparation for several years in cooperation with India's National Institute of Oceanography (NOI). Fex stands for fertilization experiment and loha is the Hindi word for iron.
It will reportedly use an eddy of water north-east of the island of South Georgia.
The German Environment Ministry told the scientists on January 14 not to proceed unless Berlin gave the green light.
The scientists, led by Victor Smetacek of AWI, have reportedly continued with their preparations in the hope that Berlin will okay the plan on Monday.
AWI rejects environmentalists' claims that the experiment is a threat to biodiversity, saying iron is constantly being sprinkled on the ocean by winds from land, melting icebergs and rivers.
The oceanographers deny the experiment breaches a moratorium agreed in Bonn, Germany last May at a world biodiversity conference.
The contract for Lohafex was signed in October 2007 by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a physicist who takes a close interest in science issues, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Proponents of iron fertilization say the concept is so important that it must be tested.
They calculate there are enough nutrients in the current sweeping around Antarctica to feed phytoplankton that could absorb 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually. All that is missing is iron, which could be scattered on the water at comparatively little cost.
___
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070627110240.htm
Science News
World Wildlife Fund Warns Against Plan To Dump Iron Dust In Open Ocean
ScienceDaily (June 27, 2007) ? World Wildlife Fund has announced its opposition to a plan by Planktos, Inc. to dump iron dust in the open ocean west of the Galapagos Islands. The experiment seeks to induce phytoplankton blooms in the hopes that the microscopic marine plants will absorb carbon dioxide. The company is speculating on lucrative ways to combat climate change.
"There are much safer and proven ways of preventing or lowering carbon dioxide levels than dumping iron into the ocean," said Dr. Lara Hansen, chief scientist, WWF International Climate Change Program. "This kind of experimentation with disregard for marine life and the lives of people who rely on the sea is unacceptable."
According to a summary by the United States Government submitted to the International Maritime Organization, Planktos, Inc.-- a for-profit company -- will dump up to 100 tons of iron dust this month in a 36 square mile area located approximately 350 miles west of the Galapagos Islands. Planktos, Inc. plans to dump the iron in international waters using vessels neither flagged under the United States nor leaving from the United States so U.S. regulations such as the U.S. Ocean Dumping Act do not apply and details do not need to be disclosed to U.S. entities.
"World Wildlife Fund's concern extends beyond the impact on individual species and extends to the changes that this dumping may cause in the interaction of species, affecting the entire ecosystem," said Dr. Sallie Chisholm, microbiologist, MIT and board member, World Wildlife Fund. "There's a real risk that this experiment may cause a domino effect through the food chain."
Potential negative impacts of the Planktos experiment include:
Reports indicate that Planktos, Inc. is planning other large-scale iron dumping in other locations in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
<HR>Adapted from materials provided by World Wildlife Fund, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
___
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010829082907.htm
Dust From Africa Leads To Large Toxic Algae Blooms In Gulf Of Mexico, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Aug. 29, 2001) ? Saharan dust clouds travel thousands of miles and fertilize the water off the West Florida coast with iron, which kicks off blooms of toxic algae, according to a new study. The research was partially funded by a NASA grant as part of ECOHAB: Florida (Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms), a multi-disciplinary research project designed to study harmful algae.
Toxic algal blooms, sometimes called red tides, have in the past killed huge numbers of fish, shellfish, marine mammals, birds, and can cause skin and respiratory problems in humans.
Each year iron from Saharan dust clouds is deposited in the waters off the West Florida coast. Once there, plant-like bacteria use the iron to set the stage for red tides. When iron levels go up, this bacteria, called Trichodesmium, 'fixes' nitrogen in the water, converting it to a form usable by other marine life. The addition of biologically usable nitrogen in the water makes the Gulf of Mexico a more likely environment for toxic algae to bloom.
"This is one of the first studies that quantitatively measured iron from the dust and tied it to red tides through Trichodesmium," said Jason Lenes, a graduate student at University of South Florida's College of Marine Science, and the lead author in the study. Lenes works under John J. Walsh, one of the principal investigators for ECOHAB, and one of the paper's coauthors. The research appears in the September issue of the scientific journal, Limnology and Oceanography.
Storm activity in the Sahara Desert region generates clouds of dust that originate from fine particles in the arid topsoil. Easterly trade winds carry the dust across the Atlantic Ocean and into the Gulf of Mexico. "Because iron is one of the most common elements in most soils, a certain percentage of the dust contains iron," said Lenes.
The study used satellite and ground based measurements to track large dust clouds leaving Africa on June 17, 1999. Lenes and his colleagues followed the clouds using data from the Advanced Very-High-Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), an imager aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES).
The Saharan dust reached the West Florida shelf around July 1st, increasing iron concentrations in the surface waters by 300 percent. As a result, Trichodesmium counts shot up 10 times what they had been prior to this event. Through a complex process involving a special enzyme called nitrogenase, the Trichodesmium used the iron to convert nitrogen in the water to a form more usable for other marine life. In October, after a 300 percent increase of dissolved organic nitrogen, a huge bloom of toxic red algae (Karenia brevis) had formed within the study area, an 8,100 square mile region between Tampa Bay and Fort Myers, Florida.
Scientists have labored for several years in an effort to develop a reliable method to predict red tides, particularly because the results of these blooms can be both physically and economically devastating to a region.
"The West Florida shelf is a hot spot for fishing, aquaculture and tourism, all of which can be drastically affected by a surprise visit from a red tide," said Lenes.
Humans who swim in the Gulf can experience respiratory problems by breathing toxins from K. brevis that get in the air. Also, eating shellfish poisoned by red tides can lead to paralysis and memory problems. Around the Gulf of Mexico, scientists and others have recorded fish kills totaling in the millions and manatee deaths in the hundreds resulting from a single red tide bloom.
By using satellites to monitor dust arrivals and Trichodesmium blooms, Lenes said this research could lead to forecasting of red tides. "If you could predict when a red tide is coming, you could close beaches and fisheries ahead of time," Lenes said.
The paper was funded through a number of grants connected with the ECOHAB program. Other funding for this study included grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Office of Naval Research and the Environmental Protection Agency. The ECOHAB: Florida Mission is to better understand the factors involved in the occurrence and dispersal of Florida's predominant red tide algae, K. brevis, and to predict and manage harmful algal bloom events.
For more information on ECOHAB and Red Tides see: http://www.floridamarine.org/
Also see: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20010824redtides.html
<HR>Adapted from materials provided by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center--EOS Project Science Office.
___
http://www.aboutmyplanet.com/theories/space-mirrors-should/
Space Mirrors and Iron Dust in the Seas - Should Man Play With Nature?
Sounds incredulous, but there are votaries for the use of extreme technologies to cure the Earth of its environmental ills. A concoction of the cutting edge and 'over-the-edge' knowhow. It's called 'Geo-engineering'. But all seem to serve one problem - fastracking the results. Check out some of the notional suggestion doing the rounds.
Proffers to combat global warming by using mirrors in outer space to deflect the sun, or suspending smoke particles in the upper atmosphere are some. Then there are other proposals which seek to soak up the carbon in the atmosphere by seeding the oceans with iron dust. Apparently, it would spurt the growth of algae which can then work on the excess carbon in the air.
Some of these ideas have come out from the blueprints to the real world. Victor Smetacek, a professor at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, is planning an iron sulphate fertilization experiment off Antarctica in early 2009. The institute will also collaborate with India to disperse 20 tons of iron sulphate near South Georgia over 300 sq kms.
Various start-ups have and are seriously working on their prototype ideas. Australia's Ocean Nourishment, Atmocean in New Mexico and Climos are working on varying sea-based projects. Albeit at a very small scale as the arcane 'experiments' have yet to find widespread sanction. The fear of unforeseen consequences has been the dividing line between the nay and yeah sayers.
The U.N. Climate Panel notified that world greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, mainly burning fossil fuels, rose 70 percent between 1970 and 2004. Yes, the number is numbing...but is it time to push the panic button? The skeptics don't think so. They would like to tread on the side of caution because playing with nature might create havoc.
Terry Barker, head of the Cambridge Center for Climate Change Mitigation Research and one of the leading authors of the U.N. panel report says,
"More evidence has been coming in since then, but it's far from making a reliable case for geo-engineering."
And we would be just adding to the mess. Rene Coenen, head of the Office for the London Convention, an international organization that regulates dumping at sea had this to say regarding the iron fertilization experiment ?
"We are at the boundaries, treading in areas that we are not normally dealing with."
Also, "knowledge about the effectiveness and potential environmental impacts of ocean iron fertilization currently was insufficient to justify large-scale operations."
But the patrons are taking a different perspective. They cite the so far unsuccessful attempts to curb carbon emissions as a prime reason for looking at alternate scenarios.
Victor Smetacek says that nature is already under the hammer. He reasons about his experiment that - "Iron has a very positive effect. Added to the ocean it's like water in the desert." His research could be an important portent to the efficacy of alternate technologies.
The scientific reasoning is sound. The iron sulphate will promote the growth of algae in the ocean waters. His study aims to measure that growth and the extent therefore it can absorb carbon dioxide. The extra algae would also serve as food for krill, a marine species which is the main food of whales and penguins. As the algae dies off it will get submerged and sink to the bottom.
But it the effect of such manipulation on a wider scale and its effect on the delicate marine food chains is the worrying factor for the skeptics.
The iron fertilization project is one of the most 'workable' and cheapest proposals that have been placed before the U.N Climate Panel. Other proposals deliberated by the U.N. Climate Panel include installing a metallic screen covering a 106 sq km (40.93 sq mile) patch of space 1.5 million kms (930,000 miles) away from earth in the direction of the sun. Nobel chemistry prize winner Paul Crutzen came up with the idea of blitzing the upper atmosphere with sulfur particles to deflect sunlight. Another proposal looks at mimicking the effect of sea water on air. Sprays of sea water make low level clouds whiter, thus bouncing off the incident
solar rays.
All proposals which come under 'geo-engineering' have an important forking beyond the obvious. That is the only concern. After all, man wasn't meant to play God.
Source:
Reuters
First it was a negation of even the possibility that this abruptly weather changings and warmings is man-made.
It is an natural Earth cycle, they said.
Than, when things became worry and costly the critical mass of researchers were made, and we learn that it is fueled by man-made activities (of many sorts), but be happy and not worry, because it would take a hundred year to have serious repercussions.
Short time further, after many "hit the wall" conferences, it became clear that the human society isn't able to draft an serious cut-off emissions and change agreement.
Now, we learn that the actual warming is an ireversible process which would stay a thousend year on.
So, there would be no escapes from us.
But that was not enaugh to make an real change now, to cut off, and implement non-pollution sun/... energy by changing the industrial/energy technology process.
Such techno-changings with more investing could purificate many emissions even from old energy sources.
In the same time when somebody yet negate the man-made influx to the global climate change, starts to pop up "scientific studies" which state that all this (mostly now globaly ireversible process) can be changed by some man-made activities of very low investing grade and factual changing:
"Continue to dump into the ocean, this time iron dust.
That would feed enaugh algae that they would absorb the most of the carbonium which influx to the warming.
And do it in the last relatively non poluted regions, as in Antarctic Ocean."
Boy, such study-makers obviously had not any output quality control of their conclusions.
Everybody who have to dealt with algae (toxic and not) know how messy became the water environment where they proliferate, and how oxigen sucking and sticky, became the layer where they overpopulate.
Every scholar know that the plancton is at the base of the whole marine food chain.
No plancton - no life.
What want to do these wrong-studies implementators - to destroy all marine life at the same time with no major efects on the global warming?
Even if that bio-tampering have a chance to do some esigue carbon sucking there, the weather and warming depends not only on CO2.
And finaly, no study makers have the right to push collateral damage and destroying of various life on Earth.
Look alone to the stories - "it is planning an iron sulphate fertilisation experiment off Antarctica in early 2009".
Read on some news and olds about:
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/s...hp/Berlin_mulls_ban_on_dropping_iron_in_ocean
Berlin mulls ban on dropping iron in ocean
Science Features
Jan 24, 2009, 15:38 GMT
Berlin - A controversial plan by Germany and India to drop six tons of iron dust into the Antarctic Ocean next week may be called off after a German government review.
The experiment is the biggest trial ever of iron fertilization, a technology which could stop global warming at very little cost.
Radical environmentalists oppose the idea. They say such a simple solution may encourage the world to burn more fossil fuel. They also argue that 'geo-engineering' might accidentally wreck ocean life.
The idea behind iron fertilization is simple. Algae living at the ocean surface have plenty of other nutrients but are starved of iron. Sprinkle iron dust on the water and they reproduce rapidly, absorbing carbon dioxide from the surface water.
At the end of their life cycle the algae die and sink. Most of the carbon ends up in deep water or on the sea bottom.
The ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide from the air, reducing the greenhouse effect. Sequestering carbon this way might stop global warming.
In the biggest experiment ever with the idea, 30 Indian scientists and 18 from other nations left Cape Town on January 7 with ferrous sulphate powder containing six tons of iron to broadcast on 300 square kilometres of ocean.
Their vessel, the Polarstern, was provided by the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) for Polar and Marine Research of Bremerhaven, Germany.
This month, Germany's Science Ministry, which funds AWI, ordered the plan suspended while it conducted an urgent review.
The government is scheduled to receive scientific reports from Ifremer, the French oceanography agency, and from the British Antarctic Survey on Monday next week, Folke Mehrtens of AWI said.
If the ministry then orders the experiment cancelled, the scientists will abandon the plan, AWI's director, Karin Lochte, confirmed in Berlin. 'We don't want to cause a political crisis,' she said.
As often happens in Germany, where anti-capitalist protest has a long tradition, critics are especially outraged that using the ocean as a carbon sink might benefit private interests. They see the 'evil' motive of profit as motivating the research.
One group, Aktionskonferenz Nordsee, said that the aim was to offer industry a cheap way to sequester carbon in the ocean.
While people India might not think there is anything wrong with finding a cheaper path to economic growth, AWI scientists are quick to deny economic benefits. They insist that the Polarstern trip is 'purely scientific,' not in the interests of business.
Indian scientists on the Polarstern add that governments need to know if the environmentalists' forebodings are justified.
'We need to understand better how iron affects the oceanic ecosystem,' Lochte explained.
She said that based on current science, AWI does not recommend fertilizing large expanses of ocean so as to sequester carbon, but believes a state agency, not a private one, needs to study the process.
'The rock dust in one large melting iceberg would increase the iron concentration by roughly the same amount,' Lochte said.
The experiment could answer questions about whether iron dust may have been a factor in causing ice ages and warm periods in the planet's history, and how iron impacts on phytoplankton and krill in the ocean food chain.
Scientists want to know how much carbon reaches the different layers of the ocean and whether it returns to the atmosphere.
AWI says there have so far been five smaller iron-dust experiments in the southern oceans, but never one as comprehensive as this.
The test, code-named Lohafex, has been under preparation for several years in cooperation with India's National Institute of Oceanography (NOI). Fex stands for fertilization experiment and loha is the Hindi word for iron.
It will reportedly use an eddy of water north-east of the island of South Georgia.
The German Environment Ministry told the scientists on January 14 not to proceed unless Berlin gave the green light.
The scientists, led by Victor Smetacek of AWI, have reportedly continued with their preparations in the hope that Berlin will okay the plan on Monday.
AWI rejects environmentalists' claims that the experiment is a threat to biodiversity, saying iron is constantly being sprinkled on the ocean by winds from land, melting icebergs and rivers.
The oceanographers deny the experiment breaches a moratorium agreed in Bonn, Germany last May at a world biodiversity conference.
The contract for Lohafex was signed in October 2007 by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a physicist who takes a close interest in science issues, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Proponents of iron fertilization say the concept is so important that it must be tested.
They calculate there are enough nutrients in the current sweeping around Antarctica to feed phytoplankton that could absorb 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually. All that is missing is iron, which could be scattered on the water at comparatively little cost.
___
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070627110240.htm
Science News
World Wildlife Fund Warns Against Plan To Dump Iron Dust In Open Ocean
ScienceDaily (June 27, 2007) ? World Wildlife Fund has announced its opposition to a plan by Planktos, Inc. to dump iron dust in the open ocean west of the Galapagos Islands. The experiment seeks to induce phytoplankton blooms in the hopes that the microscopic marine plants will absorb carbon dioxide. The company is speculating on lucrative ways to combat climate change.
"There are much safer and proven ways of preventing or lowering carbon dioxide levels than dumping iron into the ocean," said Dr. Lara Hansen, chief scientist, WWF International Climate Change Program. "This kind of experimentation with disregard for marine life and the lives of people who rely on the sea is unacceptable."
According to a summary by the United States Government submitted to the International Maritime Organization, Planktos, Inc.-- a for-profit company -- will dump up to 100 tons of iron dust this month in a 36 square mile area located approximately 350 miles west of the Galapagos Islands. Planktos, Inc. plans to dump the iron in international waters using vessels neither flagged under the United States nor leaving from the United States so U.S. regulations such as the U.S. Ocean Dumping Act do not apply and details do not need to be disclosed to U.S. entities.
"World Wildlife Fund's concern extends beyond the impact on individual species and extends to the changes that this dumping may cause in the interaction of species, affecting the entire ecosystem," said Dr. Sallie Chisholm, microbiologist, MIT and board member, World Wildlife Fund. "There's a real risk that this experiment may cause a domino effect through the food chain."
Potential negative impacts of the Planktos experiment include:
- Shifts in the composition of species that make up plankton, the base of the marine food chain, would cause changes in all the species that depend on it.
- The impact of gases released by both the large amount of phytoplankton blooms induced by Planktos, Inc. and resulting bacteria after the phytoplankton die.
- Bacterial decay following the induced phytoplankton bloom will consume oxygen, lowering oxygen levels in the water and changing its chemistry. This change in chemistry could favor the growth of microbes that produce powerful greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide.
- The introduction of large amounts of iron to the ecosystem--unless it is in a very pure form, which is likely cost-prohibitive at the scales proposed--would probably be accompanied by other trace metals that would be toxic to some forms of marine life.
Reports indicate that Planktos, Inc. is planning other large-scale iron dumping in other locations in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
<HR>Adapted from materials provided by World Wildlife Fund, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
___
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010829082907.htm
Dust From Africa Leads To Large Toxic Algae Blooms In Gulf Of Mexico, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Aug. 29, 2001) ? Saharan dust clouds travel thousands of miles and fertilize the water off the West Florida coast with iron, which kicks off blooms of toxic algae, according to a new study. The research was partially funded by a NASA grant as part of ECOHAB: Florida (Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms), a multi-disciplinary research project designed to study harmful algae.
Toxic algal blooms, sometimes called red tides, have in the past killed huge numbers of fish, shellfish, marine mammals, birds, and can cause skin and respiratory problems in humans.
Each year iron from Saharan dust clouds is deposited in the waters off the West Florida coast. Once there, plant-like bacteria use the iron to set the stage for red tides. When iron levels go up, this bacteria, called Trichodesmium, 'fixes' nitrogen in the water, converting it to a form usable by other marine life. The addition of biologically usable nitrogen in the water makes the Gulf of Mexico a more likely environment for toxic algae to bloom.
"This is one of the first studies that quantitatively measured iron from the dust and tied it to red tides through Trichodesmium," said Jason Lenes, a graduate student at University of South Florida's College of Marine Science, and the lead author in the study. Lenes works under John J. Walsh, one of the principal investigators for ECOHAB, and one of the paper's coauthors. The research appears in the September issue of the scientific journal, Limnology and Oceanography.
Storm activity in the Sahara Desert region generates clouds of dust that originate from fine particles in the arid topsoil. Easterly trade winds carry the dust across the Atlantic Ocean and into the Gulf of Mexico. "Because iron is one of the most common elements in most soils, a certain percentage of the dust contains iron," said Lenes.
The study used satellite and ground based measurements to track large dust clouds leaving Africa on June 17, 1999. Lenes and his colleagues followed the clouds using data from the Advanced Very-High-Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), an imager aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES).
The Saharan dust reached the West Florida shelf around July 1st, increasing iron concentrations in the surface waters by 300 percent. As a result, Trichodesmium counts shot up 10 times what they had been prior to this event. Through a complex process involving a special enzyme called nitrogenase, the Trichodesmium used the iron to convert nitrogen in the water to a form more usable for other marine life. In October, after a 300 percent increase of dissolved organic nitrogen, a huge bloom of toxic red algae (Karenia brevis) had formed within the study area, an 8,100 square mile region between Tampa Bay and Fort Myers, Florida.
Scientists have labored for several years in an effort to develop a reliable method to predict red tides, particularly because the results of these blooms can be both physically and economically devastating to a region.
"The West Florida shelf is a hot spot for fishing, aquaculture and tourism, all of which can be drastically affected by a surprise visit from a red tide," said Lenes.
Humans who swim in the Gulf can experience respiratory problems by breathing toxins from K. brevis that get in the air. Also, eating shellfish poisoned by red tides can lead to paralysis and memory problems. Around the Gulf of Mexico, scientists and others have recorded fish kills totaling in the millions and manatee deaths in the hundreds resulting from a single red tide bloom.
By using satellites to monitor dust arrivals and Trichodesmium blooms, Lenes said this research could lead to forecasting of red tides. "If you could predict when a red tide is coming, you could close beaches and fisheries ahead of time," Lenes said.
The paper was funded through a number of grants connected with the ECOHAB program. Other funding for this study included grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Office of Naval Research and the Environmental Protection Agency. The ECOHAB: Florida Mission is to better understand the factors involved in the occurrence and dispersal of Florida's predominant red tide algae, K. brevis, and to predict and manage harmful algal bloom events.
For more information on ECOHAB and Red Tides see: http://www.floridamarine.org/
Also see: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20010824redtides.html
<HR>Adapted from materials provided by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center--EOS Project Science Office.
___
http://www.aboutmyplanet.com/theories/space-mirrors-should/
Space Mirrors and Iron Dust in the Seas - Should Man Play With Nature?
Sounds incredulous, but there are votaries for the use of extreme technologies to cure the Earth of its environmental ills. A concoction of the cutting edge and 'over-the-edge' knowhow. It's called 'Geo-engineering'. But all seem to serve one problem - fastracking the results. Check out some of the notional suggestion doing the rounds.
Proffers to combat global warming by using mirrors in outer space to deflect the sun, or suspending smoke particles in the upper atmosphere are some. Then there are other proposals which seek to soak up the carbon in the atmosphere by seeding the oceans with iron dust. Apparently, it would spurt the growth of algae which can then work on the excess carbon in the air.
Some of these ideas have come out from the blueprints to the real world. Victor Smetacek, a professor at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, is planning an iron sulphate fertilization experiment off Antarctica in early 2009. The institute will also collaborate with India to disperse 20 tons of iron sulphate near South Georgia over 300 sq kms.
Various start-ups have and are seriously working on their prototype ideas. Australia's Ocean Nourishment, Atmocean in New Mexico and Climos are working on varying sea-based projects. Albeit at a very small scale as the arcane 'experiments' have yet to find widespread sanction. The fear of unforeseen consequences has been the dividing line between the nay and yeah sayers.
The U.N. Climate Panel notified that world greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, mainly burning fossil fuels, rose 70 percent between 1970 and 2004. Yes, the number is numbing...but is it time to push the panic button? The skeptics don't think so. They would like to tread on the side of caution because playing with nature might create havoc.
Terry Barker, head of the Cambridge Center for Climate Change Mitigation Research and one of the leading authors of the U.N. panel report says,
"More evidence has been coming in since then, but it's far from making a reliable case for geo-engineering."
And we would be just adding to the mess. Rene Coenen, head of the Office for the London Convention, an international organization that regulates dumping at sea had this to say regarding the iron fertilization experiment ?
"We are at the boundaries, treading in areas that we are not normally dealing with."
Also, "knowledge about the effectiveness and potential environmental impacts of ocean iron fertilization currently was insufficient to justify large-scale operations."
But the patrons are taking a different perspective. They cite the so far unsuccessful attempts to curb carbon emissions as a prime reason for looking at alternate scenarios.
Victor Smetacek says that nature is already under the hammer. He reasons about his experiment that - "Iron has a very positive effect. Added to the ocean it's like water in the desert." His research could be an important portent to the efficacy of alternate technologies.
The scientific reasoning is sound. The iron sulphate will promote the growth of algae in the ocean waters. His study aims to measure that growth and the extent therefore it can absorb carbon dioxide. The extra algae would also serve as food for krill, a marine species which is the main food of whales and penguins. As the algae dies off it will get submerged and sink to the bottom.
But it the effect of such manipulation on a wider scale and its effect on the delicate marine food chains is the worrying factor for the skeptics.
The iron fertilization project is one of the most 'workable' and cheapest proposals that have been placed before the U.N Climate Panel. Other proposals deliberated by the U.N. Climate Panel include installing a metallic screen covering a 106 sq km (40.93 sq mile) patch of space 1.5 million kms (930,000 miles) away from earth in the direction of the sun. Nobel chemistry prize winner Paul Crutzen came up with the idea of blitzing the upper atmosphere with sulfur particles to deflect sunlight. Another proposal looks at mimicking the effect of sea water on air. Sprays of sea water make low level clouds whiter, thus bouncing off the incident
solar rays.
All proposals which come under 'geo-engineering' have an important forking beyond the obvious. That is the only concern. After all, man wasn't meant to play God.
Source:
Reuters