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Invisible Scum on Sea Cuts CO2 Exchange With Air 'By Up To 50%' (theguardian.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

An invisible layer of scum on the sea surface can reduce carbon dioxide exchange between the atmosphere and the oceans by up to 50%, scientists have discovered. From a report: Researchers from Heriot-Watt, Newcastle and Exeter universities say the findings, published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Monday, have major implications for predicting our future climate. The world's oceans absorb around a quarter of all man-made carbon dioxide emissions, making them the largest long-term sink of carbon on Earth. Greater sea turbulence increases gas exchange between the atmosphere and oceans and until now it was difficult to calculate the effect of "biological surfactants." Teams from the Natural Environment Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust and the European Space Agency developed a system that compares "the surfactant effect" between different seawaters in real time. They found surfactants can reduce carbon dioxide exchange by up to 50%.

4 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. This does nothing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    As the world continues to heat and the subocean deposits of methane start flowing, 50% reduction in local surface reactions is not going to mean squat. This is a bandaid on an aneurysm. Even conceptually it is unpromising.
    Reducing emissions is the obvious solution that we spend so much time effort and brainpower avoiding, because as a terraforming species we are lazy and deserve extinction. It's too bad higher order fauna on Earth goes with us.
    Really it's just the coal-fired intellects of the GOP and their Chinese counterparts that deserve to be doomed to extinction in their own filth. The rest of us are roped along by the economics of the past. Humanity fails traditionally.

    1. Re:This does nothing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You're obviously not a scientist but a denialist moron. The Sun does not entirely control all climate variations on Earth, nor the amount of insulating gasses in the atmosphere that humans deposit there. (You're one of those deserving it.)

    2. Re:This does nothing. by CaptainDork · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You have some good points but have missed an obvious one:

      "They," are "us."

      The driver behind shitting in our mess kit is shareholder greed .

      We want asymptotic stock gains over nanosecond time frames.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  2. Ocean acidification by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So is ocean acidification not a bad thing anymore? Sounds like they stumbled upon a beneficial side effect of pollution for a change.