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Carbon dioxide is one of many green house gases that nutrition to global warming and can be absorbed by either land or water. It has been proven that the Saracens are able to absorb carbon dioxide fairly easier than land, so why not try to enhance carbon dioxide absorption through them. The method is also known as ocean fertilization, which meaner the idea is to dump iron into the ocean to allow phytoplankton to thrive. These phytoplankton absorb carbon dioxide and along with other nutrients and can possibly, as it dies, make its way down to the ocean floors.
Essentially the goal is to feed these phytoplankton and have them drag carbon dioxide down with them to the ocean floors keeping them there for about 100 years until the natural ocean cycles would eventually surface these phytoplankton. I am all for finding different ways to help fight global warming and climate change because this planet is our home, and without it none of us will be able to do anything. I believe that this could be an effective way to help fight against climate change and reduce a specific greenhouse gas.
However, the article also states that this method may actually increase the production of nitrous oxide and methane which are more potent than carbon dioxide through the bacteria in the ocean that decays the biomass. It is a catch 22 situation and I believe that other methods should be found that only decrease green house gases. We should not have to sacrifice one gas for another. Another flaw in this method is that dumping iron into one area of the ocean and multiplying these phytoplankton will deprive other parts of the ocean far way of certain nutrients harming ocean life due to the natural patterns of the water flow.
While reading through this article I found far more poor side effects than positive. Yet another flaw in this method is that although the phytoplankton will take the carbon dioxide with them down to the ocean floors, the water cycles will eventually surface estimated to be about 100 years later. What I would like to know is what will happen then, 100 years later when all of this carbon dioxide does surface. I believe it isn’t actually a solution; it is more like simply delaying the gases form arming our climate for a century.
It is similar to instead of actually cleaning your room, to Just shove everything under the bed. We will Just have to deal with all of the extra gases when they resurface. Although they know that these phytoplankton will absorb carbon dioxide, scientists still aren’t positive exactly how much carbon dioxide will actually be absorbed even through the increase in these micro-organisms. In conclusion I do not find this method to be very productive, and definitely not the best way to fight global warming.
I am glad that they are at least finding new methods and progressing however one that depletes one gas, but possibly may increase two more is not very efficient. To fight climate change we must be able to only deplete gases, not sacrifice two for one. That kind of thinking is not going to help us. Also this simply prolongs the effects of carbon dioxide for about a century, although possibly and hopefully by then our atmosphere will have reached a point where we are out of this threat and can handle an excess load of carbon dioxide.
The article also stated that it could possibly help remove several hundred million metric tons which is a fairly large amount; however the total amount of carbon in the air is estimated to be around 6. 5 billion metric tons. I truly believe with the technology and knowledge that we now have that our society should and will be able to come up with better and more efficient methods against fighting climate change and global warming, however this must happen in the near future before it comes to a point where we are beyond repair.