Question

You have been hired fresh out of college by a geoengineering consulting firm, Geoengineering Real Solutions. You are put on a team evaluating ocean fertilization with iron as a way to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. The idea is that iron is a limiting micronutrient for a number of phytoplankton in the oligotrophic open oceans. Fertilizing large areas of ocean by dumping iron filings off of tanker ships should cause phytoplankton to bloom, fixing more CO2 out of the atmosphere, resulting in more carbon getting buried in the deep sea due to sinking particles. How would you use your logic to evaluate whether this solution is likely to be successful, and what additional pieces of information might you need to help your team decide? Explain your rationale and provide with accordant references if any.

Answer 1

The process of ocean fertilization is an apt way of balancing the the excess amount of carbon dioxide that is being pumped into the atmosphere by the various human activities. The imbalance has been caused simply because the rate at which carbon dioxide is being let into the atmosphere is huge as compared to the rate at which carbon dioxide is taken in by the terrestrial animals and photosynthetic organisms.

This solution of increasing the phytoplankton population, in order to make the ocean a sink for carbon dioxide is apt. However an important piece of information to be remembered here is that, the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the oceans could pose a threat to aquatic life and coral reefs. An alternate measure has to be taken in this regard.