Tracking whales. Getting rid of excess carbon will help “sunshine eaters”

Geologists propose solving the problem of climate change by applying what whales have done for millions of years.

Time is not on our side – humanity needs to lower CO2 levels on a global scale to deal with impending climate change. As a result, Science Alert writes, researchers are ready to consider the most radical methods, such as fertilizing the ocean, to combat excess carbon in the atmosphere.

As a result, a group of geoscientists at the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory came up with a very ambitious plan to bury excess carbon on the ocean floor.

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According to study co-author Michael Hochell, he and his colleagues believe we should use the oceans as a reservoir for excess CO2 and phytoplankton as a biological pump to “pick up” carbon from the atmosphere and “bury” it. the depths of the ocean.

The researchers explain that phytoplankton are tiny organisms that need minerals like iron to grow and reproduce. However, only a limited number of minerals float with them on the surface of the water, which significantly limits the number of microorganisms. In fact, the researchers suggest using fertilizers to help photosynthetic organisms on the ocean surface “swallow sunlight.”

Scientists note that this idea was proposed by whales, the giant inhabitants of the seas. Once upon a time, it was they who carried out a large part of the natural fertilization of the ocean – whales “fed” phytoplankton with giant excrement hairs and could thrive. However, whaling has significantly affected this process – if earlier whales helped remove about 2 million tons of carbon dioxide from the air, today the figure has dropped to only 200 thousand tons.

Engineers suggest we can solve this problem by artificially adding missing fertilizers – thereby stimulating microorganisms to grow, multiply, and therefore absorb carbon. Scientists believe that this way, humanity can restart the broken cycle and retain excess carbon for hundreds of thousands of years as fossils turn into fuel.

The main problem was that large soluble forms of essential nutrients could not stay on the water surface for long for phytoplankton to use them. As a result, scientists turned to nanoparticles – iron oxide and iron oxyhydroxides – natural fertilizers for the ocean.

According to Hochell, his and his colleagues’ idea is to use existing processes and complement them. In the study, a team of scientists led by University of Leeds biochemist Peman Babahani reviewed more than 100 studies and found artificial nanoparticles that could be very suitable for safely fertilizing phytoplankton.

The challenge lies in the fact that scientists need to find a middle ground – artificial insemination of the ocean must occur at a level that will increase microalgae numbers, but you can’t go beyond that they can become toxic to the ocean.

In some of the studies the team reviewed, the scientists were able to increase the growth and abundance of phytoplankton by 35-756 percent. Additionally, a number of studies suggest that fertilized phytoplankton flowers will eventually consume other nutrients not artificially provided in the ocean. As a result, this slows the growth of microalgae, which means scientists have to take this moment into account.

Note that right now the idea is in the brainstorming stage and no real research has been done yet. Like any large-scale manipulation of the environment, this proposal carries certain risks.

Previously Focus He wrote that a huge garden of “flowers” had been discovered under Antarctica’s ice sheet.

Source: Focus

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