On Feb. 16th the Kyoto Accord goes into full effect and with it vast majority of the nations of the world will be engaged in a historic coalition to fight the greatest threat which is global climate and ocean change. As you may recall I have been working on this topic via the Planktos effort for many years. We continue and with some startling news on the acidification of the oceans the ideas of Planktos are becoming recognized as critically important. Adding iron to the oceans becomes a critical need as it the only means by which we might help the oceans fix and sink some of the acid forming CO2 that is already at crisis level. At the end of December the NY TIMES reported on amendments to the Kyoto Accord and at the very end of that report a single sentence makes a riveting statement.
"Recently proposed amendments to the Protocol recommend that all signatory nations implement projects for large-scale iron fertilization of the ocean as early as technologically feasible."
The work of Planktos continues and this summer we will be conducting the largest iron fertilization experiment to date. This pilot project has the express intent to develop and deliver the technological means and understanding to safely enlist the planktos of the oceans to help reduce the already catastrophically high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and more importantly in the oceans.
I think this topic would make a fantastic story for your readers at the time of the formal implementation of the Kyoto Accord going on the 16th.
I attach below both the NY Times story and a short essay I have penned on the crisis in the oceans due to rising CO2, a crisis Planktos is working to alleviate.
Russ George
www.planktos.com
----------- NY Times Story----------------
Climate Change Law Gets �FaceLift�
The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change strengthens the internationalresponse to climate change. Adopted by consensus at the third session of the Conference of the Parties (COP3) in December 1997, it contains legally binding greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide) emission targets for developed countries for the post-2000 period.
By arresting and reversing the upward trend in atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions that started in these countries 150years ago, the Protocol promises to move the international community one step closer to achieving the Convention�sultimate objective of preventing "dangerous anthropogenic [man-made] interference with the climate system". Recently proposed amendments to the Protocol recommend that all signatory nations implement projects for large-scaleiron fertilization of the ocean as early as technologically feasible.
The New York Times 28 December 2004
---------Essay-----------
The Great Dying Redux
- Global Oxygen Production Threatened ( Russ George - Feb. 2005)
While the world puzzles over claims and counterclaims about the imminence or even existence of a "global warming threat," this simplistic headline debate pays little or no heed to a far more lethal environmental drama now unfolding in our planet's azure depths. The overriding danger to life as we know it is that our rising CO2 levels have already provoked an accelerating collapse of ecosystems in our seas, source of the oxygen we breathe.
No one now disputes that greenhouse gases (primarily CO2) are about 45% higher in the atmosphere than a century ago. Despite this stunning evidence, few public figures have had the courage to buck powerful corporate interests, connect the dots, and spell out the risks of "global climate change" dead ahead. In a scene reminiscent of early "tobacco science," many well paid researchers and even the US president continue to tout their "uncertainty", saying, "Don�t worry.. We just don�t know enough to make the call yet. It may still be a myth." While this inane "debate" rages on, let us look at facts we do know in no uncertain terms.
There is widespread scientific consensus that our CO2 levels are climbing rapidly, largely spurred by wholesale combustion of fossil carbon reserves. However, media and public attention to this phenomenon focuses almost entirely on its confusing implications for our weather, while the most dire potential consequence of the CO2 buildup is blissfully ignored. This effect imperils the largest and most delicately balanced region of our global ecosystem � the oceans. Specifically, it concerns the widespread decline in the plant life of those seas, which sustains our life on Earth. Here is what we know is happening now.
Our oceans and their plant life are the largest source of oxygen on this planet. As all biology 101 veterans know, green plants use sunlight to covert CO2 into C � carbon and O2 � oxygen. Without a healthy ocean plant ecosystem, the atmosphere's oxygen content will wane and animal life (you and I included) may find ourselves gasping like novice climbers on the highest Himalayan peaks. But is this something we have to worry about right now? Alarmingly the answer is yes. The drop in atmospheric oxygen is already being observed.
What is occurring, and we have good data to prove this, is that while the CO2 levels have climbed over the past century we are also witnessing a stunning decline in oceanic plant growth. During the past 20 years both the Pacific and Atlantic have lost more than 10% of their productivity. The loss in the North Pacific may be as high as 26%. This is not alarmist speculation. These numbers are based on decades of measurements from satellites and research ships which repeatedly confirm the startling decline.
The Jan 2005 issue of Science featured studies of what has been called the Great Dying at the end of the Permian period 250 million years ago. During this unimaginable die off over 90% of ocean life and 75% the species on land became extinct. (In contrast, recall that the passing of all the dinosaur species happened only 65 million years ago and was a relatively small extinction event in the history of our planet.) According to the report's authors, this mass extermination was not triggered by a cataclysmic asteroid impact that darkened the sky for years with dust like that which doomed the dinosaurs. This Great Dying continued over thousands of years and was caused by a catastrophic decline in ocean plants which starved the atmosphere of oxygen and brought toxins in its wake. As the marine plants died away they were replaced by ocean life that metabolized sulfur compounds to generate its energy until the oceanic ecosystem produced little oxygen, but lots of poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas. But what caused the ocean plants to die in the first place? The authors indict the massive outbursts of Siberian volcanic activity which are known to have preceded the die off and released massive quantities of CO2. These ancient carbon emissions then set off widespread and complex changes in the global climate and ecology.
At first the period of high CO2 supported lush plant life on land which also thrived in the warmer temperatures engendered by the greenhouse effect. The land became more lushly covered in green plants which initially offset the oxygen shortfall from the concurrent decline in the ocean's productivity. However, oceans cover over 70% of this planet and their ecology ultimately determines the global climate and living conditions on the Earth. But how did high CO2 levels come to jeopardize plant life in the sea?
The answer as Dylan once said is blowing in the wind, and concerns the modest miracle of dust, or rather the absence thereof.
This planet can be thought of as a single intimate ecosystem where life on land and in the oceans is indivisibly linked. Life in the seas is ultimately dependent on vital mineral nutrients which erode from the land and ride the winds to help fertilize the great oceanic womb. But life-giving minerals are not equal in abundance, importance, or their means of delivery. There are three key types of nutrients needed for marine plant life and thus the ecological health of our blue planet as a whole. The two most important and obvious are nitrogen and phosphorus, but a few micronutrients like iron are essential players as well.
Since the air is 70% nitrogen, this element is easily available to all ecosystems, largely thanks to the ceaseless labors of legions of nitrogen fixing bacteria. We used to believe that nitrogen fixation was an art confined to soil bacteria, especially those cohabiting with the plant family of legumes. In the last 10 years, however, we have found nitrogen fixing bacteria widely dispersed and active in the oceans as well. They take nitrogen from the air and bond it to oxygen creating nitrates, a critical plant nutrient.
The second critical nutrient, phosphorus is chiefly a terrestrial mineral and not an omnipresent gas. It is fully as important to plant growth as nitrogen, but given its geologic genesis its physical distribution varies widely by region. Fortunately, however, phosphorus is relatively water soluble and can move about the planet in aquatic form. Over the millennia, a great mass of phosphate has washed into the oceans and still remains there in dilute abundance. (There is another fascinating connection between phosphorous distribution and bird life but that story takes more telling than this short essay allows.)
The final key to plant survival and fecundity is a small family of mineral micro-nutrients, including iron, manganese, zinc, and a few more. Plant life absolutely requires these chemicals but only in miniscule quantities compared to nitrates and phosphates. They are all relatively abundant in most surface soils, but are very scarce in the oceans far from land. Herein lies the critical link between life on land and in the sea and we can demonstrate that connection by focusing on the role and characteristics of the micro-nutrient iron.
Iron is vital for successful photosynthesis. Many plants can capture solar energy without it but very inefficiently and those starved of iron often barely survive. Among the ocean plants, which constitute the vast majority of plant life on our blue-green planet, most live very far from land, the source of most iron. The way iron reaches the "open ocean" (which we shall define as those areas more than 100 miles from shore) is via the dust delivered by the wind. Usually this dust is simply rarified soil, which typically contains about 1-3% oxidized iron in the form of hematite, magnetite or iron ore particles. The growth and evolution of open ocean plant life was tied to the recurrent but sporadic arrival of this air-borne ferric blessing, and many species thus became dramatically responsive to its appearance in their midst.
Phyto-plankton species constitute the great bulk of ocean plants, and they have been observed to undergo sudden spectacular blooms by seafarers and ocean scientists for centuries. Just what triggered these blooms was not understood until recently but some early observers did suspect a correlation with wind-borne dust. We now know for certain from both satellite and research ship studies that when dust storms blow out to sea from the great dry land regions of the earth, they leave broad green trails across the stretches of ocean that they cross. We also know that dust travels vast distances. For example, atmospheric research stations high in the Swiss mountains are able to measure the fall of particles that originated from dust storms sweeping across the Gobi desert a few weeks before. Riding the prevailing winds, this micro manna circumnavigates the globe crossing both the North Pacific and North Atlantic on its way to Switzerland. And all along these aerial pathways, the ocean's plant life waits patiently below for its seminal share of the Gobi's ferric windfall.
Unfortunately, the total amount of this life-seeding dust in the global atmosphere has greatly diminished in the last few decades. This reduction is largely due to the rising atmospheric CO2 levels which are tied in turn to the burning of fossil fuels. The correlation between the roughly 45% increase in atmospheric CO2 and the decline in wind-borne dust and ocean productivity is a modestly complicated story, but one that we all should understand.
First, CO2 as an essential phyto-nutrient can enhance plant growth by several mechanisms of varying efficacy. CO2 has the most dramatic effect on terrestrial plants living in the driest areas. In these regions plants trade precious H2O for CO2 and as CO2 becomes more plentiful, the exchange rate improves and plants like desert grasses can retain more water, stay greener longer, and extend their growing season. This extends the land's protective ground cover both in terms of time and space, which in turn diminishes wind erosion and the ocean-fertilizing dust available in the air.
The fact that dry lands are a little greener each year and are contributing less dust to the atmosphere is very well established by many scientific studies. (The effect is compounded by the spread of irrigation and modern agriculture which has also "greened" millions of arid acres and slashed their dust contributions as well.)
The alarming ongoing decline in ocean productivity is also now well documented, and correlates persuasively with the developments noted above.
More to come� this is just an early draft�.
