Fertilizing oceans - good or bad?

Depends on who is asked, and who has interests in one answer or another

A short time ago I wrote about Artificial fertilization in the Nile estuary, fertilization which in the first step increases the amount of fish in the environment. Ideas for fertilizing the oceans with iron have come and gone when the justification behind the idea is that the fertilization will increase the growth of phytoplankton and algae that absorb carbon dioxide (COXNUMX) from the atmosphere and thus contribute to the fight against global warming. But not everything is clear and obvious in the adsorption process and not everyone sees the advantage of fertilization.

The studies that have been done so far have been funded by commercial companies that have an interest in integrating into the global HTP market by dispersing iron throughout the ocean, a dispersion that will allow the offsetting of HTP emission rights. In other words, the initial goal of the project will be economic profit, therefore most of the surveys and tests that have been done have reached positive conclusions, conclusions that require fertilizing with iron in order to absorb DTP.

One of the arguments against the fertilization is that "the iron will cause the absorption of DTP which will remain in the upper layer of the water and will therefore be emitted after a short time back into the atmosphere. The fertilization entrepreneurs are not satisfied with iron and there is an intention to fertilize with nitrogen as well, experts from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC in Hobart claim that "the addition of iron may cause changes in the marine ecological environment and if fertilization expands and nitrogen is also used, there will be an increase in methane emissions and nitric oxide".

It was recently reported about a research ship that went to the South Atlantic Ocean with the aim of starting an experimental distribution of 20 tons of iron, in an area of ​​300 square kilometers. The project is a German-Indian collaboration financed by a German industrial company. "Green" groups, headed by a Canadian organization - Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration ETC Group, called for the experiment to be stopped on the grounds that it violates the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a call that led to the intervention of the German Minister of the Environment and the halting of the project.

Spokespeople for the American commercial company Climos, which tests fertilizing with iron, claim that fertilizing does not violate the International Marine Organization's London Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution, but that an examination of the summary of a meeting held last year shows that the convention only allows "Legitimate scientific research"? "legitimate scientific research" so opinions are divided.

To resolve the dispute, independent research is needed. A new report in "Science" suggests that there is no scientific certainty surrounding the question of how much DTP can be absorbed by fertilization that will trigger a plankton bloom.

"Nature" reports on a study conducted by the team of the National Oceanography Center, led by Prof. Raymond Pollard, the researchers examined an area around Cortez Island in the Southern Ocean, southeast of the DRAP, an area where a natural bloom of Phytoplankton. The island is built of volcanic rocks with a high concentration of iron that ripples slowly into the sea, the ripple rises and fades in different seasons and accordingly when the concentration of iron is high the phytoplankton blooms, when the concentration is low the amount of phytoplankton decreases to a minimum.

In the same area, they are engaged in artificial fertilization experiments, when the experiments try to answer the question how much of the DTP absorbed by the phytoplankton leaves the system, how much DTP sinks deep enough so that it does not return to the atmosphere in the near future?

Pollard and his team found that when there is more iron in the water, more carbon sinks to the depths, but at the same time there were doubts as to the amounts of DTP that can be adsorbed in this way? The team of researchers found that the amounts of DTP that can be removed from the system are much smaller than what was published in "invited" studies. The quantities were smaller by multiples of 15-50 than the estimates of "commissioned" studies. In other words, in order to reach the published quantities, iron quantities must be spread which will be at least 15 to 50 times greater!

Such amounts will "bloom" phytoplankton that will deposit the carbon to about 200 meters, not deep enough since in less than ten years the carbon will return to the cycle and be emitted as DTP into the atmosphere. In order to remove the DTP for a longer time, the carbon has to sink much deeper. At depths above 3000 meters, the carbon changes its composition and continues to sink, according to Pollard, the changes that the carbon goes through in the valleys were not taken into account by researchers who are looking at the numbers obtained in laboratory experiments, numbers that are much higher than what happens in nature.

According to him, although the experiment was done in nature, it is possible that the numbers reached by his team are also high since the experiment was done in conditions free of disturbances and in a relatively small area.

An Australian marine biologist, Dr. Martina Dolbin, a phytoplankton expert from the University of Sydney, claims that more and more evidence shows that: "There is scientific uncertainty surrounding the question of how much DTP can be absorbed by fertilizing with iron", according to her, an initiative to fertilize with nitrogen could be dangerous, But the research into iron fertilization is important and must continue, neutrality of researchers will make it difficult for commercial companies to support research, since the companies are interested in positive results, therefore it is important that research be done and published with full transparency.