A major step towards reducing climate change
may well come from creating new plant life in the ocean, and what better
organism to use than plankton that is one of the most important carbon sinks on
the planet. These tiny organisms absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen by
the ton as they undergo photosynthesis. When plankton dies, they take the
carbon to the bottom of the ocean with them.
Many scientists have
proposed dumping large amounts of iron into the ocean to stimulate the growth
of mineral-hungry organisms, like plankton. Actually, the private company
Planktos Inc. of California has already attempted this. Another alternative
that was suggested is to use massive wave-powered pumps to force nutrient-rich
water from the colder deep ocean to the warmer surface, which would induce
large plankton blooms.
However, one of the greatest
challenges in having success with these projects isn’t necessarily the
availability of iron or money to run them, but finding ways to prevent the
plankton from being consumed by other ravenous sea creatures, which would basically
send the absorbed carbon right back into the atmosphere.
Source:
Powell, Hugh.
"Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron: Should We Add Iron to the Sea to Help
Reduce Greenhouse Gases in the Air?" OCEANUS Magazine 13 Nov. 2007. Print. < http://goo.gl/r8bJfF>
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