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Restore the plankton and you've restored the bottom of the food chain.

The plankton have died off by at least 40% over the past 60 years. John Martin at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute hypothesized in the early 90's that the die-off was due to diminishing iron in the ocean surface waters. He was quoted as saying "Give me a freighter full of iron fertilizer and I'll give you an ice age." meaning that spraying iron onto the ocean's surface would re-populate the plankton and they in turn would consume the excess CO2 that's currently acidifying the oceans.

In 2002, MBARI validated his hypothesis that spraying iron fertilizer would engender a plankton bloom. Subsequent studies have replicated MBARI's results.

Seems to me that if someone were to claim a 100 square mile chunk of ocean, they could fertilize it, seed it with anchovies and start a very profitable aqua farm. They would be harvesting a variety of predator fish such as bass and tuna once they discovered the anchovies feasting on the plankton. Since the farm wouldn't harvest all of the carbon the plankton consumed, it'd be a net carbon sink.

7000 containers sounds like a real lot, until you put it into perspective. 10,000 containers get washed overboard annually. Each and every year. And very obviously nobody gives half a shit about it. Losing those 10,000 containers each and every year is apparently still much cheaper than working out something to keep them from going under.

7,000 more is just, well, more cost of operation. That it costed a container ship is unfortunate. For the shipping carrier, that is, but I doubt anyone of those owning the contents of the containers really cares.

Bringing the numbers closer to human-scale, a 300 parts per million is the same as 3 parts per 10,000. Similarly 400 is 4 parts per 10,000. So basically, we've gone from 3 molecules per 10,000 to 4 molecules of CO2 per 10,000 molecules of air.

In the same period, plankton levels have declined over 1% per year since the late 1970's. John Martin at MBARI postulated that the decline was due to a decline of dissolved iron in the oceans. He's quoted as saying "Give me a tanker full of iron and I'll give you an ice age." A series of experiments, IRONEX and SOFEX demonstrated that he was right - adding iron caused the plankton to bloom. The SOFEX bloom lasted longer than the 45 days allotted to collect plankton samples. IRONEX demonstrated that the predators could find the bloom and feed on it.

You want to reduce CO2 levels? Stop hunter-gatherer style fishing and start farming the oceans. Of course, then the problems will be keeping the earth warm enough to avoid another ice age and preventing fish rustlers from making off with your harvest.

Bringing the numbers closer to human-scale, a 300 parts per million is the same as 3 parts per 10,000. Similarly 400 is 4 parts per 10,000. So basically, we've gone from 3 molecules per 10,000 to 4 molecules of CO2 per 10,000 molecules of air.

In the same period, plankton levels have declined over 1% per year since the late 1970's. John Martin at MBARI postulated that the decline was due to a decline of dissolved iron in the oceans. He's quoted as saying "Give me a tanker full of iron and I'll give you an ice age." A series of experiments, IRONEX and SOFEX demonstrated that he was right - adding iron caused the plankton to bloom. The SOFEX bloom lasted longer than the 45 days allotted to collect plankton samples. IRONEX demonstrated that the predators could find the bloom and feed on it.

You want to reduce CO2 levels? Stop hunter-gatherer style fishing and start farming the oceans. Of course, then the problems will be keeping the earth warm enough to avoid another ice age and preventing fish rustlers from making off with your harvest.

Prior Art, just need to work on the sinking, rising on command part.

IIt is a regular occurrence for containers to be washed overboard or to simply be "lost" (before or after customs).

Yes. 10000 containers per year lost at sea. Probably not yours, but it could be.

You might associate it with coral reefs, but the majority of it is far more bland.

Check out these articles on whale falls. It's pretty cool.

http://www.nurp.noaa.gov/Spotlight/Whales.htm

http://www.mbari.org/news/news_releases/2002/dec20_whalefall.html

In terms of producing your own methane, yes it is possible. Here are a few books which discuss doing just that: http://www.knowledgepublications.com/methane_uses_and_fuels.htm Methane most certainly does have it's place in the alternative energy arena. One aspect of methane that is not often discussed is that it is readily available in the form of methane hydrates: http://www.mbari.org/news/publications/ar/chapters/06_hydrates.pdf. At some point an enterprising individual will likely make billions mining the stuff. One book I highly recommend is "The Solar Hydrogen Civilization" http://www.amazon.com/Solar-Hydrogen-Civilization-Future-Economy/dp/0972837507. The answers to all our current energy problems are contained in this book using technology and infrastructure that exists today. Energy farming is something that must be done on a smaller more local scale i.e. wind farms in windy states, solar/hydrogen in the desert, kinetic energy near beaches, etc... Even ethanol has it's place. There are many myths about ethanol in this thread. While it is not the end all be all solution it does have it's place and has the capacity to make a small farmer a tidy profit while enriching farm lands and creating edible organic foods using permaculture farming. I high recommend David Blume's book, "Alcohol Can be a Gas!" http://www.amazon.com/Alcohol-Can-Be-Gas-Revolution/dp/0979043778 The final front that has it's merits it nuclear energy. However, using thorium instead which I am quite certain you will discover to be a superior and much more earth friendly fuel than uranium. Good luck with your methane farming should you decide to go for it. Many others have done it before quite successfully!

Finally, my M.S. on the deep-ocean sequestration of carbon dioxide becomes relevant!

CO2 is a supercritical liquid at depth, denser than water. Here's the stuff at 3300 meters (courtesy of MBARI)

Here's your phase diagram.

Here's some pictures that show CO2 at depth.

Once at depth, the CO2 will slowly dissolve into the seawater, lowering the pH. Of course, we're doing this at the ocean surface as-is, so one can make the argument that it's less bad to acidify the deep ocean slowly vs. surface waters quickly.

If you drop dry ice overboard, a goodly amount of it will dissolve before reaching bottom. There's research on this; I leave finding the reference as an exercise.

Finally, my M.S. on the deep-ocean sequestration of carbon dioxide becomes relevant!

CO2 is a supercritical liquid at depth, denser than water. Here's the stuff at 3300 meters (courtesy of MBARI)

Here's your phase diagram.

Here's some pictures that show CO2 at depth.

Once at depth, the CO2 will slowly dissolve into the seawater, lowering the pH. Of course, we're doing this at the ocean surface as-is, so one can make the argument that it's less bad to acidify the deep ocean slowly vs. surface waters quickly.

If you drop dry ice overboard, a goodly amount of it will dissolve before reaching bottom. There's research on this; I leave finding the reference as an exercise.

The bottom of the ocean can be mapped. The tool of choice is the side-scan sonar [obligatory wikipedia reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-scan_sonar ], either towed behind a ship or, if your research group is incredibly cool, from an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) See http://www.mbari.org/news/homepage/2005/mapping-auv.html

If anything I can see members of the scientific community establishing a platform similar to this. Scripps already has the Flip-ship ( http://www.sio.ucsd.edu/voyager/flip/ ), NOAA's NWS weather buoys + hurricane forecasting system, and MBARI's MOOS system ( http://www.mbari.org/moos/mooring/mooring.htm ).

This would extend the capabilities for our oceans , especially for real time data and observing trends for global warming. The possibilities, even if a city cannot be established, are still endless.

Since the 1700s, not a single earthquake in California that was over 6.5 has caused a tsunami there.

There have been 8 California quakes that have generated tsunamis. Though the San Andreas Fault isn't liable to generate a tsunami because it slips to the right instead of up/down, some California quakes are able to generate undersea landslides. Click on the image on this Mbari page and you'll see a substantial scar left by a landslide off the Santa Barbara Coast.

Secondly, yesterday's quake was north of Cape Mendocino which is at the southern end of a series of subduction faults that head up to Alaska. Unlike transform faults, subduction faults can, and do, cause tsunamis.

If anything, I think the media is ignoring some of the risks. Portions of Monterey Bay have very steep submarine walls. A 7.0 quake centered in the bay could generate a landslide that would send a tsunami towards the low-lying regions in Monterey and Carmel. The best advice for anyone in California who feels a quake while they're near the shore is to climb right away. Don't wait for the media to tell you there's a risk because the warning will come too late. Most of the time climbing will be unnecessary, but sometimes it'll save someone's life.

There are pictures and a detailed article here

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The resemblance between jellyfish and the Portugese man-o-war is mostly a matter of appearance, although there are some functional similarities too (both have stinging cells and drift freely, for instance).

Man-o-war are siphonophores, and the biologists say they are communal organisms. The transparent blue bladder that floats on the sea surface is one animal; each stinging tentacle that hangs from this float is another, each leech-like feeding polyp still another, and the community is further enlarged by separate male and female reproductive polyps. None of these animals can reproduce or even exist apart from the colony, but they have distinct separate genetic material.

The whole thing plays hell with traditional definitions of what individuality is, and what exactly comprises a single organism.

--Charlie

Here's a link to the story on the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Instute
(MBARI) site

straight from the source...