Poster's note: scroll down for abstract https://www.inverse.com/article/58560-marsh-mud-anti-greenhouse-gas-climate
Can We Actually Use the “Anti-Greenhouse Gas”? These findings lend themselves to a somewhat controversial idea: that we might be able to manipulate these marine ecosystems to produce more DMS and try to offset climate change that way. This idea dates back to 1987, when James Lovelock (the person who came up with the “Gaia hypothesis <https://courses.seas.harvard.edu/climate/eli/Courses/EPS281r/Sources/Gaia/Gaia-hypothesis-wikipedia.pdf> ”) proposed <https://www.nature.com/articles/326655a0> that we could actually use DMS-producing plankton to offset the warming climate. In 2007, he wrote a letter <https://www.nature.com/articles/449403a> proposing an “emergency treatment for the pathology of global warming”: the creation of 100- to 200-meter-long pipes that could bring oceanic nutrients to the surface, jumpstarting DMS production. In that letter, Lovelock admitted that a project like this “may fail perhaps on engineering or economic grounds.” And it has since been criticized because it could also cause dangerous algal blooms or other unintended consequences. But the idea has never totally disappeared. In 2015, another paper <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4543957/> published in *Scientific Reports* used two climate models to show that increasing DMS production would actually offset some changes in warming. Personally I do not think there is a geo-engineering angle to the work, others may disagree.” Still, even that paper acknowledged that there would likely be an excessive “mixture of positive and negative impacts on the climate” to attempt such an aggressive geoengineering scheme. Sponsored <https://www.inverse.com/article/56746-what-is-runner-s-high-how-to-achieve-it> 00:0301:10 <https://www.inverse.com/article/56746-what-is-runner-s-high-how-to-achieve-it> The Science of a Runner's High <https://www.inverse.com/article/56746-what-is-runner-s-high-how-to-achieve-it> Celebrity trainer Jenna Willis breaks down the science behind a runner's high and shares some tips to help get you there. <https://www.inverse.com/article/56746-what-is-runner-s-high-how-to-achieve-it> Watch More » <https://www.inverse.com/article/56746-what-is-runner-s-high-how-to-achieve-it> Todd, in the context of this new paper, doesn’t see his team’s work that way. “We feel our study does provide important knowledge required to understand the global production and cycling of DMSP and DMS,” he says. “Personally I do not think there is a geo-engineering angle to the work, others may disagree.” Still, as we continue to search for a solution, some may be inspired to know that our saltwater marshes and estuaries could be far richer sources of the “anti-greenhouse gas” that we once thought. Abstract: Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) and its catabolite dimethyl sulfide (DMS) are key marine nutrients1,2 that have roles in global sulfur cycling2, atmospheric chemistry3, signal- ling4,5 and, potentially, climate regulation6,7. The production of DMSP was previously thought to be an oxic and photic pro- cess that is mainly confined to the surface oceans. However, here we show that DMSP concentrations and rates of DMSP and DMS synthesis are higher in surface sediment from, for example, saltmarsh ponds, estuaries and the deep ocean than in the overlying seawater. A quarter of bacterial strains isolated from saltmarsh sediment produced DMSP (up to 73 mM), and we identified several previously unknown pro- ducers of DMSP. Most DMSP-producing isolates contained dsyB8, but some alphaproteobacteria, gammaproteobacteria and actinobacteria used a methionine methylation pathway independent of DsyB that was previously only associated with higher plants. These bacteria contained a methionine meth- yltransferase gene (mmtN)—a marker for bacterial synthesis of DMSP through this pathway. DMSP-producing bacteria and their dsyB and/or mmtN transcripts were present in all of the tested seawater samples and Tara Oceans bacterioplankton datasets, but were much more abundant in marine surface sediment. Approximately 1 × 108 bacteria g−1 of surface marine sediment are predicted to produce DMSP, and their contribu- tion to this process should be included in future models of global DMSP production. We propose that coastal and marine sediments, which cover a large part of the Earth’s surface, are environments with high levels of DMSP and DMS productiv- ity, and that bacteria are important producers of DMSP and DMS within these environments. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/geoengineering/CAJ3C-045VxPkOpo13jDVVZq2hxOOot-vJoOKO-Wp916RohVZ%3DA%40mail.gmail.com.
