Tag: Carbon Sinks

Aug 11 2009

Should we Seed the Oceans, to Reverse Runaway CO2 Rates?

We live on a wonderfully complex planet.

Global Plankton Blooms



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

The World contains the systems and feedback cycles to bring things back into balance — given enough time. (like millenniums)

The great plankton blooms of the Oceans is one such cycle, that can potentially capture more carbon than all the forests of the world; while at the same time providing the basis of the food chain, in the world’s greatest food basket.  Plankton, not eaten, are destined to become sediment rock, at the bottom of the sea (taking all that harmful CO2 with them).

Problem is, plankton blooms, have been fading, by as much as 30% due to rising Ocean temperatures. IPCC estimates that “80% of the heat that is being trapped by greenhouse gases is absorbed by the ocean.”

Humans have the know-how to “kick start” those Plankton Blooms back to their previous splendor —

Question is:  Do we dare to use the Earth as a giant Test Tube?

Oct 21 2007

Everything but the Oceans’ Sinks

Cross-posted from The Environmentalist

Amidst alarms raised about the loss of ice in the polar regions, the extreme droughts across the US, the floods in the UK earlier this year, the increasingly unstable nature of the weather worldwide, a new concern has been raised about the Southern Oceans’ inability to absorb and store CO2:

The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is so loaded with carbon dioxide that it can barely absorb any more, so more of the gas will stay in the atmosphere to warm up the planet, scientists reported on Thursday.

Human activity is the main culprit, said researcher Corinne Le Quere, who called the finding very alarming. The phenomenon wasn’t expected to be apparent for decades, Le Quere said in a telephone interview from the University of East Anglia in Britain. “We thought we would be able to detect these only the second half of this century, say 2050 or so,” she said. But data from 1981 through 2004 show the sink is already full of carbon dioxide.

more below the jump…