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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Land Shark who wrote (36027)	12/4/2012 12:04:42 AM
From: Hawkmoon	1 Recommendation Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 86356

You've 0 empirical data to back that assertion that sequestering by phyto is much larger than that of the ocean waters Look.. you're intentionally attempting to twist what I'm saying. I acknowledge that the oceans act as a CO2 sink, as CO2 gas dissolves in the waters based upon water temperature. But to get that carbon "sunk" to the ocean depths requires a natural mechanism for extracting it from the water, converting it to solid carbon, and facilitating it's sequestration to the ocean floor. That is phytoplankton. It uptakes CO2 from the surrounding water, and less so from the atmosphere via photosynthesis. I certainly do not know of any other process where CO2 separates into solid carbon and oxygen components, resulting in carbon deposition to the bottom. It requires biological intervention. Some of that carbon directly sinks a marine snow, as Diatoms and other heavier forms of phytoplankton die a natural death. The rest of the phytoplankton is consumed, and a large percentage of the carbon deposited as fecal matter. The rest is "exhaled" by various marine life back into the ocean, to be redissolved in the waters (minus whales which surface to exhale). Right now there are schemes being devised to pump CO2 into the ocean depths. This would be huge technological hurdle (and costly), whereas simply replenishing the trace nutrients like Iron and silica.. etc would augment the existing processes. lbl.gov When there isn't enough iron around, then the phytoplankton can't grow. For example, if the water has 10 parts CO2, 10 parts oxygen, 5 parts nitrogen and 1 part iron, and the phytoplankton need 2 parts iron for photosynthesis, then the phytoplankton can't do photosynthesis and thus can't grow. If you think of it in terms of natural resources, iron is the first resource to run out. cires.colorado.edu Once again.. and try and get this through your head. Phytoplankton consume dissolved CO2 and convert it to solid carbon form. They then die, or are consumed, and a large portion of that solid carbon is deposited to the ocean floor. This reduces the level of dissolved CO2 in the ocean waters, thereby permitting more atmospheric CO2 to be dissolved and sequestered. If there is a 40% reduction in consumption of dissolved CO2 in the oceans, it stands to reason that the oceans will become more acidic. It certainly stands to reason that less atmospheric CO2 will be dissolved into the ocean waters. Is that clear enough for you? I don't care if we're the source of the problem or not. What IS CLEAR is that the ocean's botanical ability to engage in photosynthesis has become disrupted due to lack of trace nutrients like Iron. The solution is to restore that natural balance, even it means fertilizing the oceans with Iron. Everything else is tangental. Doesn't matter if CO2 level increases are natural, or man-made. What matters is that a critical part of the CO2 sequestion equation has been disrupted and needs to be restored, if only to sustain our marine fisheries. Hawk