Climate of Our Future

Could Iron Fertilization Of Oceans Combat Global Warming?

Science Daily — Several times over the past century, scientists and environmental engineers have proposed spreading slurries of dissolved iron into the oceans in order to “fertilize” the waters and promote vast blooms of marine plants (phytoplankton). Phytoplankton consume carbon dioxide as they grow, and this growth can be stimulated in certain ocean basins by the addition of iron, a necessary micronutrient.

Researchers will consider whether iron fertilization can allow the ocean to absorb more carbon dioxide while remaining healthy (left), or if the addition of iron will give no net benefit while promoting other problems in the ocean (right). (Credit: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Though common on land, dissolved iron is often rare in the ocean. Some researchers and commercial interests have recently proposed to provide that missing nutrient on a large scale in order to create artificial blooms. Theory holds that if you make such blooms large enough, you could remove excess carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere and carry it down into the deep ocean as organic matter (such as fecal pellets and dead plankton) sinks, thereby reducing the impact of greenhouse gases and global warming. Keep reading

Greenland Snow Melting Hit Record High In High Places, NASA Finds

Science Daily — A new NASA-supported study reports that 2007 marked an overall rise in the melting trend over the entire Greenland ice sheet and, remarkably, melting in high-altitude areas was greater than ever at 150 percent more than average. In fact, the amount of snow that has melted this year over Greenland could cover the surface size of the U.S. more than twice.

Microwave data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imaging radiometer was used to create this image of the 2007 Greenland melting anomaly which reflects the difference between the number of melting days occurring in 2007 and the average number of melting days during the period 1988 — 2006. (Credit: NASA/Earth Observatory)

Marco Tedesco, a research scientist at the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, cooperatively managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, used satellite data to compare average snow melting from 1988-2006 with what has taken place this summer. Keep reading