Hungry Crustaceans Eat Climate Change Experiment

Earlier this month, an expedition fertilized 300 square kilometers of the Atlantic Ocean with six metric tons of dissolved iron. This triggered a bloom of phytoplankton, which doubled their biomass within two weeks by taking in carbon dioxide from the seawater. The dead phytoplankton were then expected to sink to the ocean bed, dragging carbon along with them. Instead, the experiment turned into an example of how the food chain works, as the bloom was eaten by a swarm of hungry copepods. The huge swarm of copepods were in turn eaten by larger crustaceans called amphipods, which are often eaten by squid and whales. "I think we are seeing the last gasps of ocean iron fertilization as a carbon storage strategy," says Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University. While the experiment failed to show ocean fertilization as a viable carbon storage strategy, it has pushed the old "My dog ate my homework" excuse to an unprecedented level.

Comments

Well it sounds better than

[ColdWetDog]

The copepods ate my project. Try that one on your thesis advisor....

Still and all, that's why they do experiments. Sometimes you learn something.

Re:Well it sounds better than

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Still and all, that's why they do experiments. Sometimes you learn something.

Absolutely. Sometimes you do learn something completely new. And that's great. But the true power of the experiment is in proving that some idea is wrong.

This experiment has proved that iron fertilization is not going to work as a carbon storage strategy. Personally, I think that more experiments like this will show that most if not all carbon storage strategies do not work. But that's just me talking. Again, you need a good, solid, experiment to show something either way. Rhetoric, statistics, or celebrity backing isn't going to prove anything. Only the experiment can be the final arbiter.

In recent years, I have seen field after field all but abandon the experiment as a scientific tool. Computer models, statistics and dubious mathematics became the tools of choice. It's nice to see one in the news again.

Re:Well it sounds better than

[dexmachina]

Thank you. I was just going to post something about how this shouldn't be tagged "fail". It isn't a "failed" experiment. It's an experiment that yielded a negative result, which can be just as useful, if less flashy and exciting, than a positive one.

Re:Well it sounds better than

[MozeeToby]

This experiment didn't prove that iron fertilization is never going to work as a carbon storage strategy. It showed that, in this situation, the plan didn't work as they thought it would; that hardly means that the strategy itself is unsound. Perhaps the iron seeding needs to be done in areas with lower predator populations. Perhaps they can add something with the iron the drives the predators away. Perhaps... they need to do more research before they say what is and isn't possible.

Just because it didn't work this time doesn't mean the idea should be abandoned, as the researchers themselves seem to indicate. Besides, saying that a single experiment proves anything is at least as unscientific as using models and statistics to do research.

Re:Well it sounds better than

[Anonymous Coward]

"Personally, I think that more experiments like this will show that most if not all carbon storage strategies do not work."

So why aren't we, personally, planting 10 trees each year? Isn't that a carbon storage strategy, with free oxygen and built-in cooling?

Re:Well it sounds better than

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

All we need to do is keep pumping in the iron until the new biomass works its way up to animals that are large enough to shoot...

Re:Well it sounds better than

[B'Trey]

It isn't clear to me why this is a failure, or a negative result if you prefer. Granted, the carbon didn't sink to the bottom of the ocean, but it was still removed from the water, which should allow the water to absorb additional CO2 from the air. It seems to me that, so long as the CO2 is pulled from the atmosphere, it's still an effective means of combating warming. Isn't one of the proposed remedies to increase the plant mass? Why isn't this just as effective as increased plants? What am I missing?

Re:Well it sounds better than

[Anonymous Coward]

This experiment didn't prove that iron fertilization is never going to work as a carbon storage strategy. It showed that, in this situation, the plan didn't work as they thought it would; that hardly means that the strategy itself is unsound. ...

Now there you go being reasonable.

We want this experiment to fail. Therefore one small experiment in one small area proves it will never work anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances.

There you go, scientific proof.

Re:Well it sounds better than

[Spasemunki]

I think since the dead plankton re-entered the food chain, the carbon that it sequestered will eventually be released through the respiration of the higher-level predators in a gaseous form that will again limit the ability of the ocean water to absorb carbon. The hope with sequestration was that the dead plankton would sink to the bottom, be covered quickly with sediment, and essentially become a permanent carbon deposit. It's like the difference between planting a tree, cutting it down, and burying it vs. cutting it down and burning it. I think the hope was by creating a huge, localized bloom, you would create more food than the food chain could absorb, but the food chain is proving more able to adapt to a sudden surge in food production than anticipated.

Re:Well it sounds better than

[jd]

I dunno about less exciting. Since it boosts the food supply from the bottom of the chain, it might be quite a helpful way to repair the damage to sea populations due to serious mismanagement in the past. A temporary boost to the food chain might be exactly what is required.

Re:Well it sounds better than

[jd]

The problem is that a lot of tree planting exercises involve slim, fast-growing trees that absorb little CO2 but do absorb excessive soil nutrients. These trees have a short life-expectancy and usually end up getting dumped in land-fills where they replenish the CO2 in the air.

You have to use much slower-growing trees. The bulkier the better, the longer-living the better. I've found Californian Redwoods grow great even in the north of England (which is no great surprise, as prior to the Ice Age that was part of their territory) and it was fine to take them into the country when I last checked (no parasites and no known conflicts with native species - or, since it's a re-introduction, other native species).

Also in England, I would strongly advise planting English Oaks. They're getting rare as it is, but they are also one of the more long-lived of the oak family and again should be excellent carbon sinks.

In the US, as bristlecone pines operate best in areas most other species cannot survive in, I would imagine that it would be possible to increase their range without causing too much of an environmental problem.

Wollemi Pines might also be a good bet, as there is no risk of them getting out of control (they can't compete with flowering trees or plants) and again there should be an extremely low risk of problematic parasites.

If you like getting real christmas trees, get one with roots. Even if only one in a hundred make it through christmas intact, that would still be a massive cut in the CO2 injected back into the atmosphere. (Some places dump trees in lakes, but that acidifies the lakes and probably causes all kinds of other environmental problems.)

Re:Well it sounds better than

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even see how this yielded negative results. What did they expect would happen? I mean the summary says they expected the dead phytoplankton to sink to the bottom of the ocean. Ok, so instead it was eaten, how is that negative? Isn't the carbon still sequestered away inside the crustaceans? If so, how is this negative or a failure again?

There has to be something missing here like that the crustaceans suddenly started flying and farting...or something. Otherwise, it looks like it was a win and nobody has recognized it as such.

Anyone?

Re:Well it sounds better than

[vrt3]

The carbon absorbed by the phytoplankton is used as energy source by successively larger animals in the food chain. To extract energy from it they burn it, releasing the resulting CO2 to the water. From there it eventually gets back in the atmosphere.

In other words, the whole process is CO2-neutral instead of being a CO2-sink as was hoped for.

Re:Well it sounds better than

[Anonymous Coward]

Good question!! Here's why:
The hypothesis supposed that the plankton would fall to the bottom of the ocean and ultimately turn into oil. Instead the biomass is being turned into energy by large predators, to do this they release CO2 that was stored in the biomass back into the environment.

Biomass is a great way to TEMPORARILY sequester CO2, but unless you can remove the biomass from the rest of the biosphere (where it will be used) the CO2 will be released as the biomass is converted into energy.

The experiment thought they could move the biomass low enough in the water column that it would no longer be used by other creatures.

Re:Well it sounds better than

[geobeck]

...saying that a single experiment proves anything is at least as unscientific as using models and statistics to do research.

+1

But I'd say it's significantly more unscientific, because models and statistics do have their place in research.

Every time I hear someone say "study after study has proven what I'm telling you," I take it to mean "I read something in the paper the other day that gave a layman's (mis)interpretation of a cursory theoretical analysis of a process that has a tenuous relationship to the subject I'm talking about."

Re:Well it sounds better than

[geobeck]

According to a recent study that I'm too lazy to google for (and is only a single study, so it's not proof of anything), fish excrement contains a significant amount of calcium carbonate.

If this CaCO3 sinks to the bottom before it dissolves, it would sequester the carbon. If, however, it dissolves before it sinks, it releases the carbon right back into the water. The fate of the fish excrement was beyond the scope of the study.

So a significant amount of carbon may or may not be sequestered by the fish that prey on the plankton that capture the carbon, while a significant amount is caught up in the biomass of the fish.

However, with rampant overfishing, including use of illegal catch-em-all nets in "protected" areas, which is just about impossible to police, all of the carbon that becomes part of fish biomass will end up back in the atmosphere after passing through someone's digestive system.

But, if somehow fishermen around the world can be convinced to use iron fertilization as part of a comprehensive aquaculture system, and actually increase the global fish biomass...

Nah, you'll never get enough people cooperating to make that happen.

Obligatory Simpsons Joke

[Spazztastic]

Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.

Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?

Skinner: No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.

Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?

Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.

Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!

Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

Horray!

[SteveHeadroom]

Horray for Zoidberg!

Re:So...

[Red Flayer]

Algae --> Copepod --> Amphipod --> Whale blubber/exhaled CO2

Note that the whale blubber is eventually converted into CO2 as well.

Even if the whale dies and sinks to the ocean floor, only a small portion of the 'sequestered' carbon would not make it back into the atmosphere eventually (plenty of deep-sea animals consume whale carcasses, all the while converting the 'sequestered' carbon into CO2.

Maybe a tiny bit would be converted to Ca2CO3 by molluscs, but AFAIK, no shell-forming molluscs feed on deep-sea whale carcasses.

Re:Why is this a problem?

[whyrat]

From TFA: The tiny crustaceans graze on phytoplankton, which keeps the carbon in the food chain and prevents it from being stored in the ocean sink. The goal was to get the carbon out of the food chain and dormant on the ocean floor.

Nobody saw this coming?

[CannonballHead]

It's hard to believe nobody saw this coming. Hey, let's create a massive amount of food in the ocean and let it sink to the bottom. Did they think the ocean dwellers were just going to let it be for the sake of science or something?

I don't know, it sounds kinda stupid to me.

"Mom, I want to see how dog food reacts to the sun, so I'm going to fill Sparky's bowl and let it sit for a week."

Next day. "Mom, Sparky ate the dog food." Duh? :)

Not for carbon sequestration, but how about food?

[PeterM from Berkeley]

From the results of the experiment, apparently it won't work as a means to sequester carbon.

However, what if we can use this to improve the productivity of the ocean in general? Might the increased amount of biomass serve to improve fisheries? I.e., if there's more food all the way up the food chain, can't we eat more fish? It's a hungry planet and many fisheries have been depleted....

--PeterM

Re:Why Can't This Work...

[iminplaya]

Can't we fertilize parts of the ocean for plant growth instead?

Maybe a few well placed depth charges filled with Miracle-Gro

Re:Not for carbon sequestration, but how about foo

[Shakrai]

Perhaps. I suspect it'll just make a new sub-species of fat, lazy whales.

Americans? *rimshot*

This experiment was NOT a failure!

[UberMD]

Diatoms have been the limiting factor in ocean fertilization recentlly, fears you will throw off the ecosystem by proliferating potentially harmful diatoms. The fact that this wasn't found is a success! Organisms will eat the plankton...no surprise. However, that doesn't mean its a failure! Fish are not 100% efficient at using all organic mater from the food they eat. Anywhere from ~30- 50% of the small percent of the plankton that is eaten is still going to be released as ORGANIC waste which will then fall to the bottom of the ocean sequestering carbon.

This is like being against tree planting because it encourages bugs to come eat the leaves, birds to eat the bugs, and bacteria that eat the dead leaves

In ocean seeding theory, it would not be done in areas where there are many fish around to eat the plankton. The idea is to seed 'dead' areas of the tropic ocean where fish typically avoid because of its lack of iron. I believe in practice the idea is to seed very large areas of the ocean with less intensity than this experiment. I.E slowly release Fe off the back of shipping vessels for 100's of miles Regardless, i believe an externality of this is potentially treating some of the effects of overfishing.

Encouraging the ocean to absorb CO2 (NOT HYDROCARBONS!!) boosts its acidity. Unless someone has a reference on this, their suggestion is entirely wrong. The article they reference does not mention anything about this! Yes, CO2 increases in the ocean lead to carbonic acid and increase its acidity. But, fertilization TURNS THE CO2 into ORGANIC MATERIAL! Organic material DOES NOT INCREASE ACIDITY of the ocean, please read any book on photosynthesis.

I feel this article shows signs of some hard bias against ocean fertilization and I'm not sure why.